When AI Makes Us Faster But Less Wise

The Hidden Cognitive Cost of Outsourcing Thought

Introduction

Imagine learning to navigate a city by always following GPS. You might reach your destination faster, but weeks later you still cannot navigate the streets, picture the landmarks, or how places connect. If you don’t use your GPS, you are lost.

Generative AI introduces a similar dynamic into how we learn and work. Tools like chatGPT and Copilot can produce useful answers to many tasks instantly, but they may also reshape how knowledge is formed internally. The question is not whether AI makes us faster, but whether it quietly changes what we retain, understand, and can reconstruct on our own. This might be even more critical for the ones that are trying to learn new skills, including building software.

A recent experimental paper on AI and skill acquisition shows one side of this tension empirically, while a complementary cognitive science perspective, the Memory Paradox helps us understand why these effects matter far beyond a single task. Together, they ask a deeper question:

In a world where we offload memory and cognition to machines, what actually gets left behind? and what is the aftermath?

What: AI’s Effect on Skill Formation and Cognitive Commitment

The research paper How AI Impacts Skill Formation by Hanwen Shen and Tamkin from Anthropic…