Consulting AI for trip planning, medical advice or help writing a cover letter doesn’t just save time. It could be fundamentally reshaping how our brains process decisions, according to researchers studying how reliance on artificial intelligence reshapes human reasoning.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard it said that AI affects critical thinking skills. But while most research has been observational, cognitive behavioral scientists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business wanted to add to the empirical evidence. So they conducted experiments with almost 1,300 subjects and found that in 80% of the cases when participants chose to consult ChatGPT, they went with wrong answers without stopping to scrutinize them.

“We call it adoption without verification,” Steven Shaw, a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive behavior at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, said in an interview.

With generative AI systems like ChatGPT, Claude or Google Gemini just a tap away, “people can surrender their thoughts to AI and let it think for them,” he said. “They’re basically subverting the whole internal brain set of processes.”

Shaw and Wharton professor Gideon Nave, an engineer with a doctorate in computation and neural systems, have coined a term for the phenomenon: “cognitive surrender.” And they’re concerned it could erode the slower, more internal processes of intuition, reflection and analytical deliberation, the kinds that shape judgment and even a sense of self.

Senate Clears Deal To End DHS Shutdown Amid Airport Chaos—ICE Funding Excluded

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 ‘Wide’ Gets New Confirmation

Google Confirms High-Risk Update For 3.5 Billion Chrome Users

“It also, surprisingly, changes how confident we are in our responses, even ones........

© Forbes