Cana Fuest, PhD Candidate

One of the concerns surrounding the increased use of AI is that human beings will rely too heavily on it to think for them. Studies show that when people receive a response from an AI app, such as ChatGPT, they are likely to accept the response without questioning the information. This means that most people passively receive information without thinking critically about it. The concern is that sometimes AI gets it wrong. Even now, ChatGPT has a little disclaimer at the bottom of the page that states, “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.” Beyond that, there is growing concern that young people already have life pretty easy, with infinite accesible information. Are they learning to sift through it all?

Currently, institutions such as MIT, are researching whether AI can be harnassed as a tool to augment and enhance human cognition and critical thinking ability. This might look like developing AI to ask questions so that users think more carefully about the answers they are given. Or a user wears a device that prods them to think about a conversation to determine bias. Now, with the release of products such as Apple Vision, it is not impossible to envision a future where everyone interacts with each other through the lens of an AI enhanced device. Is this the next step in human development and intellect: augmenting our ability to reason and interact through AI? It was only a couple of decades ago that cell phones were scarce, and smart phones didn’t exist. I wouldn’t be surprised to find that we are rapidly heading toward an AI augmented future.

References

Danry, V.M. (2021). AI enhanced reasoning: Augmenting human critical thinking with AI systems. [Master’s thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology].

Goldberg, K., & Klotz, F. (2019). How AI can amplify human competencies? Why Humans Matter More than Ever, 31–36. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12450.003.0009