Chuck Pearson: "A recent study by the Swiss academic Michael Gerlich from the journal Societies about the impacts of AI usage introduces the term cognitive offloading. The question begged by that phrase is simple: when people turn to generative AI to complete complex tasks, and thereby give over the work of those tasks to a computer, how does that impact their capacity to critically engage with the world around them?"
"That study built out the hypothesis that the more somebody uses AI tools, the weaker their critical thinking skills get. There was substantial evidence gathered in the study gathering information about participants’ use of AI tools and both self-assessed and systematically assessed critical thinking skills. All of the evidence gathered supported the idea that people used AI to intentionally give up tasks that required serious thought, and those people’s critical thinking suffered as a result."
https://chuckpearson.wordpress.com/2025/01/13/the-ethical-case-for-resisting-ai/