ChatGPT – or Manuel as the SPARCS team calls it – can make life easy. You have a question? Type it into ChatGPT! Do you want assistance drafting a professional email? ChatGPT. Maybe you want your resume to sound more… spiffy, ChatGPT! Perhaps you are running out of dinner ideas? ChatGPT. It provides quick responses that are tailored to you and your user profile that is built on you. AI provides convenience and is designed to give quick responses to questions you have, or tasks you want to complete. Sometimes you may find it easier to just go to AI to resolve these questions or tasks quickly. Have you ever found yourself thinking about if this is limiting you on a deeper, subconscious level? If yes, the answer is yes. By limiting time spent problem-solving on your own, it is directly leading to cognitive offloading.
Cognitive offloading is the name used to describe the act of offloading mental tasks to external tools (in this case, AI) to reduce mental effort/tasks. Cognitive offloading is also seen in other ways, like using Google to search for answers to a question, storing phone numbers in your contacts list, using a calendar to track your tasks and events, or plugging in directions to your GPS (even if you already know where to go). Cognitive offloading isn’t evil, but it can lead to cognitive atrophy. By using AI to be provided a quick response, you may be leading yourself to cognitive atrophy. You plug in a question, get a response, and move along – this process results in little critical thinking. A study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University confirmed that of those participants who had more confidence in AI, they reported feeling as though they performed less critical thinking when using AI to perform tasks. Another study performed by MIT researchers shows a similar effect -- with weaker neural connectivity observed in those participants who used AI to write an essay, as opposed to writing it without the use of AI.
Despite the fact that using AI can lead to cognitive offloading and cognitive atrophy, we CAN still use AI to our advantage. Here are some tips to help you still utilize AI, but also utilize your brain:
- Get specific with your questions! Start by thinking through the problem yourself, then challenge yourself and AI to produce thorough, targeted responses to very specific questions.
- Instead of using AI for generating ideas, use it to perform iterative tasks instead. Maybe you use an email template to send various emails on a recurring basis, let AI help you update the template as needed!
- Pay attention to the responses you receive. AI is doing the best it can, but it isn’t always correct. Read its responses closely, and challenge it if you think something sounds inaccurate or incorrect.
AI isn’t evil, and AI isn’t going to melt our brains (unless we allow it to). Like all things in this world, moderation is key -- coffee provides a lovely energy boost, but if you drink too much, it can have the opposite effect and give you jitters/make it hard to focus. Likewise, AI can help you save time on tasks, but if you rely too heavily on AI, you may start to lose those critical thinking skills that allow your brain to advance and thrive.