By Will Knight
Publication Date: 2026-05-06 18:00:00
Use of AI chatbots Because according to a new study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford and UCLA, just 10 minutes can have a shockingly negative impact on people’s thinking and problem-solving abilities.
Researchers tasked people with solving various problems, including simple fractions and reading comprehension, through an online platform that paid them for their work. They conducted three experiments, each involving several hundred people. Some participants were given access to an AI assistant that could solve the problem autonomously. If the AI helper suddenly disappeared, these people were significantly more likely to give up on the problem or distort their answers. The study suggests that widespread use of AI could increase productivity at the expense of developing basic problem-solving skills.
“The takeaway is not that we should ban AI in education or the workplace,” says Michiel Bakker, an assistant professor at MIT who is involved in the study. “AI can…
