This is something I’ve wondered about over the years – especially as I start using AI tools more and more in various parts of my life. When it comes to muscle strength, “use it or lose it” they say.
In my experience, the same applies to language acquisition – and pretty much everything else I’ve come across so far. Before I had a smart phone, I had memorised MANY phone numbers. Now I barely remember by own. Before I started typing almost everything my handwriting was bad. Now, if possible, it’s worse.
When it comes to reading, researching, understanding and making an informed decision, I used to use (and still do use) regular search engines. But I increasingly turn to ChatGPT and friends to get its opinion on whatever I’m needing to understand – which, being a part-time developer, are commonly technical things.
No longer being able to memorise 50 phone numbers is not something I feel concerned about. But offloading my ability to make critical decisions to a (potentially) biased computer is more worrying. If you’re a sucker for punishment, here’s a study: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6.
I haven’t read much of it, but the TL;DR is that yes, folks who use a lot of AI tools (especially the young ones) aren’t as good at critical thinking as the oldies who don’t use it… Is it just AI? Or is it just good ol’ fashioned wisdom and experience… I guess I’ll have to read the whole study (the slow and old-fashioned way!) to find out