More Artificial Intelligence = Dumber People?

One of the main concerns many Americans have with respect to AI is its effect on people’s ability to perform certain tasks themselves. Much like people who rely on crutches too long after an injury lose muscle and need to work very hard to rebuild their strength later, people who keep using AI to perform certain tasks may gradually lose the ability to do these things themselves.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, creativity is most at risk in the eyes of Americans, with 53 percent of respondents saying that the increased use of AI will make people’s ability to think creatively worse, while just 16 percent think that the opposite will be true. Another 40 percent think that people will eventually get worse at making difficult decisions if they keep asking AI for help and 38 percent think that humans will gradually lose their problem-solving skills.

On a slightly different, but not less important note, 50 percent of respondents think that AI will worsen people’s ability to form meaningful relationships with other people, as millions of people are turning to AI chatbots for companionship. There is no substance in such companion, however, as AI can only mimic the emotion and understanding that real human connections offer.

According to Pew’s findings, far fewer people expect AI to actually improve people’s abilities in any of the aforementioned tasks, while a lot of people are either undecided or don’t think that AI will change people’s abilities one way or the other.