The Hidden Costs of AI Convenience on Your Brain
I usually write about the technical aspect of AI, but this topic has been at the center of my interest for the past month, so I thought about sharing some of what I learned and my thoughts on it.
So, I am currently reading a book called “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman, I have heard about it last summer when I was talking to a friend about a paper by MIT about the impact of ChatGPT on our brain.
It was sitting on my reading list for a few month, and I just got into reading it last month. This book explains in a very clear and eloquent way a theory known as the Dual Process Theory.
While reading this book, currently at the second chapter, It’s become more clear to me how much our brains are prone to AI. The current state of AI and the direction we’re moving towards fast, is quiet concerning especially when it comes to the younger generation.
In this post, we’ll explore cognitive offloading as a hidden cost of AI convenience by drawing on general psychological principles supported by Dual Process Theory, particularly the insights from Daniel Kahneman’s book, and other interesting research papers.
Understanding Cognitive Offloading Have you ever kept a grocery list on your phone because, without it, you’d definitely come home with anything except what you needed? Or have you ever left dozens of unread tabs open as a “visual memory system” for things you’re supposed to read later?
That’s cognitive offloading, and we’ve been doing it forever!
We’ve scribbled grocery lists, used calculators, kept appointment books, and bookmarked more pages than we’ll ever admit to actually reading. Nothing new there. But with AI? we’re achieving a whole different level.
Most of the new AI-powered technological advancement are designed to encourage our cognitive offload habit, and that’s marketed as convenience and labeled as smart (e.g., self-driving cars, text auto-complete, navigation apps, etc..)
But the most prominent example that I want to focus on is AI-powered Chatbots, like ChatGPT. This new technology doesn’t just remember things for you, it thinks for you. It analyzes. It generates. It solves problems you haven’t even finished articulating. And sure, that’s incredibly useful. You get more done in less time, which feels amazing. Until you realize what’s actually happening under the hood.
Your brain is lazy by nature!
And I don’t mean that as an insult of course, it’s just that it is efficient. Meaning that if it can achieve something with less energy spent, it will prioritize doing that.
However, when you stop doing the heavy lifting, your brain notices. It adapts. It conserves energy. And those neural pathways you used to rely on for memory, problem-solving, deep thinking? They start to weaken. Use it or lose it isn’t just a gym motto, it’s also in neuroscience.
So, here’s the trade-off researchers are worried about: AI boosts your performance right now. You finish tasks faster, handle more volume, feel productive. But what about later? Studies (Few listed below) show that when we outsource our memory to external tools, we can’t recall information nearly as well when those tools aren’t around. And with AI, it’s not just facts we’re forgetting. It’s the entire habit of wrestling with ideas, of thinking deeply, of doing the hard cognitive work that actually strengthens our minds.
We’re not just offloading anymore. We’re opting out.
Here are two research papers on this topic that I really enjoyed reading:
AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has transformed numerous aspects of daily life, yet its impact… www.mdpi.com
Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory Modern technical tools such as tablets allow for the temporal externalisation of working memory processes (i.e… pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
A Framework for Understanding the Impact To better grasp why cognitive offloading via AI is particularly dangerous, we need to take a look at the Dual Process Theory.
It’s a cornerstone of cognitive psychology popularized by Daniel Kahneman in “Thinking, Fast and Slow”. This theory argues that the human cognition operates through two distinct systems:
System 1: Fast, intuitive, and automatic. It handles “effortless” tasks like recognizing a friend’s face or making snap judgments based on heuristics. This system is energy-efficient but prone to biases and errors. System 2: Slow, deliberate, and analytical. It engages in effortful reasoning, such as solving complex math problems or weighing pros and cons in decision-making. This system requires concentration and mental resources but yields more accurate and creative outcomes. One thing to keep in mind, is that the System 1 learns from the System 2, for example when you first learn how to solve a quadratic equation, or how to play piano, you find it challenging and you spend a lot of time concentrated to get it right, that’s you System 2 in action. But, with time, you become “natural” with it, and you start doing it without even needing to pay that much attention, that’s when you System 1 takes control.
Kahneman argues that we default to System 1 whenever possible to minimize cognitive effort. And, AI amplifies this by making System 2 tasks feel like System 1 ones. For example, instead of pondering a logical puzzle (System 2), we query an AI for the answer, bypassing the mental workout. Over time, this over-reliance on quick, AI-provided solutions strengthens System 1 pathways while allowing System 2 to “hibernate”, leading to reduced analytical depth and increased susceptibility to cognitive biases.
Here’s a great talk by Derek Muller (Veritasium), on how AI will change education, where he also takes a look on the subject through the lenses on the dual system theory:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xS68sl2D70
How AI Encourages Cognitive Offloading AI isn’t just a tool you pick up when you need it. It’s designed to make you depend on it. It’s just that we’re in the early days of AI, but I can think of many people, including myself, that can not live without their smartphones, or PCs, and these tech products weren’t round 50 years ago.
Here’s an example: Let’s think about the difference between a calculator and ChatGPT. With the invention of calculators, you still have to do the thinking. You figure out what equation you need, punch in the numbers, interpret the result. Your brain stays in the game, you’re just offloading the tedious workload of doing the basic calculations yourself. Now comes ChatGPT, and you find out that it can do the calculations and even the thinking for you. So, you hand over the entire process. The ideation, the execution, and the analysis. You ask a question, and seconds later, you get an answer that sounds smart, polished, authoritative.
And you trust it. Because why wouldn’t you? I mean chatbots sound super confident even when they’re making the most crazy things up!
This is what researchers call “cognitive debt” You’re borrowing brainpower now and paying for it late, except the bill comes due in weakened neural connections. EEG scans have actually shown this: people who regularly use AI have reduced brain connectivity in areas responsible for attention and memory. And those effects don’t just disappear when you stop using AI. They linger.
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing… This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided… arxiv.org
Your brain is literally rewiring itself around the assumption that AI will do the work.
Remember Kahneman’s Dual Process Theory? System 1 is fast, automatic, effortless, and System 2 is slow, deliberate, and energy-intensive. Your brain prefers System 1 because it’s cheaper to run. AI exploits that preference ruthlessly. It gives you the low-effort path every single time. And the more you take it, the harder it becomes to engage System 2 when you actually need it.
I experienced that first hand when I started using AI to write my emails for almost a year then when I tried to write one myself, I felt this bizarre mental fog, like when you try reaching for a word that should be right there but isn’t.
If such cognitive debt behavior become widespread then the result isn’t going to be pretty. We’re looking at passivity on a massive scale. Homogenized thinking. A generation of people who’ve forgotten how to struggle with ideas because they’ve never had to. People who can execute tasks but can’t originate thought. Who can consume information but can’t critically examine it.
We won’t lose our intelligence all at once. It’ll be gradual, almost invisible. We’ll just stop noticing when we’ve stopped thinking for ourselves, and this reminds me of the hilarious movie called “Idiocracy ”, even though that’s highly unlikely.
But, we will definitely need to expand this meme with a more concerned face of George Costanza, once we have reliable fully autonomous AI agents.
The Measured Negative Effects on Cognition The studies by Michael Gerlich and Nataliya Kosmyna et al. shows that the downsides of unchecked cognitive offloading are multifaceted. Frequent AI use correlates with declining critical thinking, especially among younger users. Mediation analyses reveal offloading as a key factor in this erosion, leading to:
- Memory Impairment: Reduced retention of information, as seen in AI-assisted writing tasks.
- Loss of Creativity: Homogenized outputs and diminished originality, with AI assistance not enhancing unassisted performance.
- Increased Bias Reliance: Over-dependence on System 1 amplifies heuristics, per Kahneman.
- Neural Changes: Persistent suppression of brain activity in key areas, such as reduced alpha and beta connectivity indicating under-engagement.
So What Do We Do About This?
Look, I’m not saying we should throw our tech products in a lake and go live off the grid. AI is here. It’s useful. It’s not going anywhere. But here’s what Kahneman’s work keeps coming back to:
Your brain needs resistance. It needs friction. It gets stronger when you make it work, not when you let something else do the heavy lifting.
Think of AI like a power tool. You wouldn’t use a katana to cut a piece of paper, right? Same principle. Use AI as a tool, not a replacement for your own thinking. Even when it comes to brainstorming, it should only be used to assist not replace. That means: - Questioning its outputs instead of blindly accepting them. - Limiting its use for tasks you can actually do yourself. - Building in “AI-free” time where you wrestle with problems the old fashioned way, slowly and imperfectly. Your brain is like a muscle. If you stop using it, it weakens. But if you keep challenging it, it adapts. It grows. It stays sharp.
Final thoughts
The real question isn’t whether AI is convenient, of course it is. The question is whether that convenience is worth what we’re giving up. And I’d argue our ability to think deeply, to struggle with complex ideas, to come up with something genuinely original, that’s not just valuable. It’s what makes us human in the first place. Trading that away for a shortcut, will have consequences we’re not fully grasping yet.
Read the full article here: https://ai.gopubby.com/the-hidden-costs-of-ai-convenience-on-your-brain-a497c31bde61