Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills

Comments

• peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  You mean an AI that literally generated text based on applying a mathematical function to input text doesn’t do reasoning for me? (/s)

  I’m pretty certain every programmer alive knew this was coming as soon as we saw people trying to use it years ago.

  It’s funny because I never get what I want out of AI. I’ve been thinking this whole time “am I just too dumb to ask the AI to do what I need?” Now I’m beginning to think “am I not dumb enough to find AI tools useful?”

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• Pacattack57@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Pretty shit “study”. If workers use AI for a task, obviously the results will be less diverse. That doesn’t mean their critical thinking skills deteriorated. It means they used a tool that produces a certain outcome. This doesn’t test their critical thinking at all.

  “Another noteworthy finding of the study: users who had access to generative AI tools tended to produce “a less diverse set of outcomes for the same task” compared to those without. That passes the sniff test. If you’re using an AI tool to complete a task, you’re going to be limited to what that tool can generate based on its training data. These tools aren’t infinite idea machines, they can only work with what they have, so it checks out that their outputs would be more homogenous. Researchers wrote that this lack of diverse outcomes could be interpreted as a “deterioration of critical thinking” for workers.”

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  • 4am@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That doesn’t mean their critical thinking skills deteriorated. It means they used a tool that produces a certain outcome.

    Dunning, meet Kruger

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    • Womble@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That snark doesnt help anyone.

      Imagine the AI was 100% perfect and gave the correct answer every time, people using would have a significantly reduced diversity of results as they would always be using the same tool to get the correct same answer.

      People using an ai get a smaller diversity of results is neither good nor bad its just the way things are, the same way as people using the same pack of pens use a smaller variety of colours than those who are using whatever pens they have.

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• OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Really? I just asked ChatGPT and this is what it had to say:

  /s

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  • OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I agree with the output for legitimate reasons but it’s not black and white wrong or right. I think it’s wildly misjudged and while there plenty of valid reasons behind that I still think there is much to be had for what AI in general can do for us on a whole and individual basis.

    Today I had it analyze 8 medical documents, told it to provide analysis, cross reference its output with scientific studies including sources, and other lengthy queries. These documents are dealing with bacterial colonies and multiple GI and bodily systems on a per document basis in great length. Some of the most advanced testing science offers.

    It was able to not only provide me with accurate numbers that I fact checked from my documents side by side but explain methods to counter multi faceted systemic issues that matched multiple specialty Dr.s. Which is fairly impressive given to see a Dr takes 3 to 9 months or longer, who may or may not give a shit, over worked and understaffed, pick your reasoning.

    While I tried having it scan from multiple fresh blank chat tabs and even different computers to really test it out for testing purposes.

    Overall some of the numbers were off say 3 or 4 individual colony counts across all 8 documents. I corrected the values, told it that it was incorrect and to reasses giving it more time and ensuring accuracy, supplied a bit more context about how to understand the tables and I mean broad context such as page 6 shows gene expression use this as reference to find all underlying issues as it isnt a mind reader. It managed to fairly accurately identify the dysbiosis and other systemic issues with reasonable accuracy on par with physicians I have worked with. Dealing with antibiotic gene resistant analysis it was able to find multiple approaches to therapies to fight antibiotic gene resistant bacteria in a fraction of the time it would take for a human to study.

    I would not bet my life solely on the responses as it’s far from perfected and as always with any info it should be cross referenced and fact checked through various sources. But those who speak such ill towards the usage while there is valid points I find unfounded. My 2 cents.

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    • alteredracoon@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Totally agree with you! I’m in a different field but I see it in the same light. Let it get you to 80-90% of whatever that task is and then refine from there. It saves you time to add on all the extra cool shit that that 90% of time would’ve taken into. So many people assume you have to use at 100% face value. Just take what it gives you as a jumping off point.

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  • ChapulinColorado@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Not sure if sarcasm…

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• lobut@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Remember the:

  Personal computers were “bicycles for the mind.”

  I guess with AI and social media it’s more like melting your mind or something. I can’t find another analogy. Like a baseball bat to your leg for the mind doesn’t roll off the tongue.

  I know Primeagen has turned off copilot because he said the “copilot pause” daunting and affects how he codes.

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  • dragonfucker@lemmy.nz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Cars for the mind.

    Cars are killing people.

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• superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Of course. Relying on a lighter kills your ability to start a fire without one. Its nothing new.

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• Sam_Bass@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Oddly enough that’s exactly what corporate wants. Mindless drones to do their bidding unquestioned

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• CosmoNova@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I‘m surprised they even published this finding given how hard they‘re pushing AI.

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  • OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’s because they’re bragging, not warning.

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• werefreeatlast@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That’s the same company that approved Clippie and the magic wizard.

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• ThomasCrappersGhost@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  No shit.

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• Lexam@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Gemini told me critical thinking wasn’t important. So I guess that’s ok.

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• jdeath@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  i use my thinking skills to tell the LLM to quit fucking up and try again or I’m gonna fire his ass

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  • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Keep it on its toes… Ask chatgpt, then copy paste the answer and ask perplexity why that’s wrong and go back and forth…human, AI, Human, AI…until you get a satisfactory answer.

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    • jdeath@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      i like to say “are you sure you even understand this? do you know what you’re doing or do i need to spell it out for you?!”

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• BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Unless you suffer from ADHD with object permanence issues, then in that case you can go fuck yourself.

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• Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Corporations and politicians: oh great news everyone… It worked. Time to kick off phase 2…

  • Replace all the water trump wasted in California with brawndo
  • Sell mortgages for eggs, but call them patriot pods
  • Welcome to Costco, I love you
  • All medicine replaced with raw milk enemas
  • Handjobs at Starbucks
  • Ow my balls, Tuesdays this fall on CBS
  • Chocolate rations have gone up from 10 to 6
  • All government vehicles are cybertrucks
  • trump nft cartoons on all USD, incest legal, Ivanka new first lady.
  • Public executions on pay per view, lowered into deep fried turkey fryer on white house lawn, your meat is then mixed in with the other mechanically separated protein on the Tyson foods processing line (run exclusively by 3rd graders) and packaged without distinction on label.
  • FDA doesn’t inspect food or drugs. Everything approved and officially change acronym to F(uck You) D(umb) A(ss)

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  • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Image

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  • LePoisson@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    • Handjobs at Starbucks

    Well that’s just solid policy right there, cum on.

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    • peoplebeproblems@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      It would wake me up more than coffee that’s for sure

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  • whostosay@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Bullet point 3 was my single issue vote

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  • Eheran@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I love how you mix in the Idiocracy quotes :D

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    • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      A savvy consumer, glad you mentioned. Felt better than hitting it on the nose.

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    • singletona@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I hate how it just seems to slide in.

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  • abobla@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    that “ow, my balls” reference caught me off-guard

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• venusaur@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The same could be said about people who search for answers anywhere on the internet, or even the world, and don’t have some level of skepticism about their sources of information.

  It’s more like, not having critical thinking skills perpetuates a lack of critical thinking skills.

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  • Not_mikey@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah, if you repeated this test with the person having access to a stack exchange or not you’d see the same results. Not much difference between someone mindlessly copying an answer from stack overflow vs copying it from AI. Both lead to more homogeneous answers and lower critical thinking skills.

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    • venusaur@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I’d agree that anybody who just takes the first answer offered them by any means as fact would have the same results as this study.

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    • OhVenus_Baby@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Copying isn’t the same as using your brain to form logical conclusions. Instead your taking someone else’s wild interpretation, research, study, and blindly copying it as fact. That lowers critical thinking because your not thinking at all. Bad information is always bad no matter how far it spreads. Incomplete info is no different.

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• Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Good thing most Americans already don’t possess those!

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• sircac@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It was already soooooo dead out there that I doubt they considered this systematic properly in the study…

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• thefartographer@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Image

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• ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  No way!

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• Mrkawfee@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Can confirm. I’ve stopped using my brain at work. Moreso.

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• mindlesscrollyparrot@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Well thank goodness that Microsoft isn’t pushing AI on us as hard as it can, via every channel that it can.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Learning how to evade and disable AI is becoming a critical thinking skill unto itself. Feels a bit like how I’ve had to learn to navigate around advertisements and other intrusive 3rd party interruptions while using online services.

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  • Zacryon@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Well at least they communicate such findings openly and don’t try to hide them. Other than ExxonMobil who saw global warming coming due to internal studies since the 1970s and tried to hide or dispute it, because it was bad for business.

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• _haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Duh?

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  • homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Buh?

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• kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  How many phone numbers do you know off of the top of your head?

  In the 90s, my mother could rattle off 20 or more.

  But they’re all in her phone now. Are luddites going to start abandoning phones because they’re losing the ability to remember phone numbers? No, of course not.

  Either way, these fancy prediction engines have better critical thinking skills than most of the flesh and bone people I meet every day to begin with. The world might actually be smarter on average if they didn’t open their mouths.

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  • Snapz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Something something… Only phone number I remember is your mother’s phone number (Implying that is for when I’m calling her to arrange a session of sexual intercourse, that she willingly and enthusiastically participates in).

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  • BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Even back when we only had landed lines, I could barely remember my own phone number. I didn’t think it’s a good measure.

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  • ch00f@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Memorization is not the same thing as critical thinking.

    A well designed test will freely give you an equation sheet or even allow a cheat sheet.

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    • artificialfish@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      When was the last time you did math without a calculator?

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    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Memorization is not the same thing as critical thinking.

      A library of internalized axioms is necessary for efficient critical thinking. You can’t just turn yourself into a Chinese Room of analysis.

      A well designed test will freely give you an equation sheet or even allow a cheat sheet.

      Certain questions are phrased to force the reader to pluck out and categorize bits of information, to implement complex iterations of simple formulae, and to perform long-form calculations accurately without regard to the formulae themselves.

      But for elementary skills, you’re often challenging the individual to retain basic facts and figures. Internalizing your multiplication tables can serve as a heuristic that’s quicker than doing simple sums in your head. Knowing the basic physics formulae - your F = ma, ρ=m/V, f= V/λ etc - can give you a broader understanding of the physical world.

      If all you know how to do is search for answers to basic questions, you’re slowing down your ability to process new information and recognize patterns or predictive signals in a timely manner.

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    • kitnaht@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      You’re right it’s not the same thing as critical thinking, but it is a skill we’ve lost. How many skills have we lost throughout history due to machines and manufacturing?

      This is the same tale over and over again - these people weren’t using critical thinking to begin with if they were trusting a prediction engine with their tasks.

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• Sibbo@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sounds a bit bogus to call this a causation. Much more likely that people who are more gullible in general also believe AI whatever it says.

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  • ODuffer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Seriously, ask AI about anything you are actually expert in. it’s laughable sometimes… However you need to know, to know it’s wrong. Do not trust it implicitly about anything.

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  • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This isn’t a profound extrapolation. It’s akin to saying “Kids who cheat on the exam do worse in practical skills tests than those that read the material and did the homework.” Or “kids who watch TV lack the reading skills of kids who read books”.

    Asking something else to do your mental labor for you means never developing your brain muscle to do the work on its own. By contrast, regularly exercising the brain muscle yields better long term mental fitness and intuitive skills.

    This isn’t predicated on the gullibility of the practitioner. The lack of mental exercise produces gullibility.

    Its just not something particular to AI. If you use any kind of 3rd party analysis in lieu of personal interrogation, you’re going to suffer in your capacity for future inquiry.

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    • fushuan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      All tools can be abused tbh. Before chatgpt was a thing, we called those programmers the StackOverflow kids, copy the first answer and hope for the best memes.

      After searching for a solution a bit and not finding jack shit, asking a llm about some specific API thing or simple implementation example so you can extrapolate it into your complex code and confirm what it does reading the docs, both enriches the mind and you learn new techniques for the future.

      Good programmers do what I described, bad programmers copy and run without reading. It’s just like SO kids.

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• DarkCloud@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Quickly, ask AI how to improve or practice critical thinking skills!

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  • Petter1@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Improving your critical thinking skills is a process that involves learning new techniques, practicing them regularly, and reflecting on your thought processes. Here’s a comprehensive approach:

    1. Build a Foundation in Logic and Reasoning

    • Study basic logic: Familiarize yourself with formal and informal logic (e.g., learning about common fallacies, syllogisms, and deductive vs. inductive reasoning). This forms the groundwork for assessing arguments objectively.

    • Learn structured methods: Books and online courses on critical thinking (such as Lewis Vaughn’s texts) provide a systematic introduction to these concepts.

    2. Practice Socratic Questioning

    • Ask open-ended questions: Challenge assumptions by repeatedly asking “why” and “how” to uncover underlying beliefs and evidence.

    • Reflect on responses: This method helps you clarify your own reasoning and discover alternative viewpoints.

    3. Engage in Reflective Practice

    • Keep a journal: Write about decisions, problems, or debates you’ve had. Reflect on what went well, where you might have been biased, and what could be improved.

    • Use structured reflection models: Approaches like Gibbs’ reflective cycle guide you through describing an experience, analyzing it, and planning improvements.

    4. Use Structured Frameworks

    • Follow multi-step processes: For example, the Asana article “How to build your critical thinking skills in 7 steps” suggests: identify the problem, gather information, analyze data, consider alternatives, draw conclusions, communicate solutions, and then reflect on the process.

    • Experiment with frameworks like Six Thinking Hats: This method helps you view issues from different angles (facts, emotions, positives, negatives, creativity, and process control) by “wearing” a different metaphorical hat for each perspective.

    5. Read Widely and Critically

    • Expose yourself to diverse perspectives: Reading quality journalism (e.g., The Economist, FT) or academic articles forces you to analyze arguments, recognize biases, and evaluate evidence.

    • Practice lateral reading: Verify information by consulting multiple sources and questioning the credibility of each.

    6. Participate in Discussions and Debates

    • Engage with peers: Whether through formal debates, classroom discussions, or online forums, articulating your views and defending them against criticism deepens your reasoning.

    • Embrace feedback: Learn to view criticism as an opportunity to refine your thought process rather than a personal attack.

    7. Apply Critical Thinking to Real-World Problems

    • Experiment in everyday scenarios: Use critical thinking when making decisions—such as planning your day, solving work problems, or evaluating news stories.

    • Practice with “what-if” scenarios: This helps build your ability to foresee consequences and assess risks (as noted by Harvard Business’s discussion on avoiding the urgency trap).

    8. Develop a Habit of Continuous Learning

    • Set aside regular “mental workout” time: Like scheduled exercise, devote time to tackling complex questions without distractions.

    • Reflect on your biases and update your beliefs: Over time, becoming aware of and adjusting for your cognitive biases will improve your judgment.

    By integrating these strategies into your daily routine, you can gradually sharpen your critical thinking abilities. Remember, the key is consistency and the willingness to challenge your own assumptions continually.

    Happy thinking!

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  • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Chat GPT et al; “To improve your critical thinking skills you should rely completely on AI.”

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    • VitoRobles@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That sounds right. Lemme ask Gemini and DeepSink just in case.

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• Telorand@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Good. Maybe the dumbest people will forget how to breathe, and global society can move forward.

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  • RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Microsoft will just make a subscription AI for that, BaaS.

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    • dbkblk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Which we will rebrand “Bullshit as a service”!

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  • gerbler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Oh you can guarantee they won’t forget how to vote 😃

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