Using generative AI may be impacting critical thinking skills, new research out of Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University say.

The pair surveyed 319 knowledge workers in a bid to assess the impact of using generative AI at work, which has now sparked further concerns about how the emerging technology is impacting our ability to think.

Researchers have said qualms and concerns are generally valid, saying that the use of AI contributed to the “deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”

The study did find that the use of genAI can improve efficiency, at the cost, however, of inhibiting “critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving.”

For many employees, work has shifted from problem solving to solution checking, and workers focus on checking the accuracy of AI answers to queries rather than solving them themselves.

The more workers relied on AI, and were confident in its abilities, the less likely they were to have confidence in their own critical thinking skills.

“However, workers who are confident in their own skills tend to perceive greater effort in these tasks, particularly when evaluating and applying AI responses,” the research found. Those that used AI less had more confidence in their critical thinking skills.

Further, the study also found that those who employed AI more, or were more involved in AI solution checking than problem solving, were less likely to come up with diverse solutions to different problems than those who used AI sparingly.

This transformation of work has got employees thinking that they may be losing their critical thinking faculties, though this is just a perception.

The study only delved so far as to see how employees perceived their changing thinking abilities, rather than running any neurological or quantitative tests.

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However, this perception can raise alarm bells over how AI is making workers, and employers, feel.

If employees feel like they are simply AI fact checkers than making meaningful, impactful decisions or solving complex problems, this can lead to a decrease in job satisfaction, and also diminish their importance to their employers.

While it remains controversial if technology such as AI is making us dumber, the study does provide important emphasis on the need for further research into the technology’s actual affects on our brains.

If anything, AI is making employees less confident, which can be just as damaging if we rely on humans to check the work of an AI model they trust more than their own judgement.