Khaberni - Since November 2022, when the AI chatbot (ChatGPT) was launched, artificial intelligence has increasingly influenced the lives of many people.
According to a report published on "Healthline", chatbots like "ChatGPT" and other AI tools - like Google's "AI Overview" feature - have changed the way we browse the internet and use it to find answers to our most pressing questions.
Therefore, researchers are delving into studying the impact of artificial intelligence on our brains. Early findings suggest a potentially interesting link.
A preliminary study by researchers in media studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that included 54 participants found that relying on "ChatGPT" for writing articles reduces brain electrical activity and weakens the sense of text ownership and information retrieval, compared to traditional research or independent thinking. When "ChatGPT" users turned to rely solely on their brains, their brain activity remained lower and their recall ability weaker, suggesting a potential build-up of what the researchers called “cognitive debt” when relying excessively on artificial intelligence.
MIT researchers are not the only ones who have studied this phenomenon since AI tools became more widespread.
A 2025 study on the use of artificial intelligence and critical thinking skills found that people who use it more - and results suggest they are likely to be between the ages of 17 and 25 - might have lower critical thinking abilities.
The author refers to this as "cognitive offloading," which is defined as the decrease in the need for independent thinking due to reliance on the automation of analytical tasks.
Another study from 2025 suggests that the use of artificial intelligence may transform aspects of active critical thinking into more passive understanding in 3 ways:
- Retrieval and Understanding: From gathering information to verifying information.
- Application: From solving problems to integrating an AI response.
- Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation: From performing the task to supervising the task.
In general, according to a 2024 research review, the increasing reliance on AI tools to perform tasks that require deeper thinking might expose individuals to the risk of:
- Reduced mental engagement.
- Neglecting cognitive skills, such as calculations or information retrieval. - Declining memory capacity.
- Reduced attention span and concentration problems.
- Inability to apply knowledge in new situations.
- Ethical and social concerns, such as reduced human interaction and social isolation.
- Psychological challenges, such as decreased self-confidence.
How to reduce the impact of artificial intelligence on the brain?
The answer is not simply to use artificial intelligence less frequently. True, avoiding it in tasks that require deeper thinking when you can is a great first step, but it’s not always possible.
As AI tools become popular, they may become a part of your job, and their use may be encouraged, or even required, in some cases.
Instead, think about how you use artificial intelligence. When used in certain ways, it can help enhance deeper thinking, inspire creativity, and improve efficiency.
It may help you to recognize the signs of transitioning from active critical thinking to the passive forms mentioned above. For example:
- Do you use artificial intelligence to verify information instead of trying to find and understand sources on your own?
- Do you use artificial intelligence to apply ideas rather than attempting to solve problems?
- Do you use artificial intelligence to compare, link, merge, or judge ideas instead of analyzing, synthesizing, and evaluating them?
Conclusion
Emerging research indicates that excessive use of AI tools and reliance on them may profoundly affect our understanding and critical thinking abilities.
However, the current evidence supporting this hypothesis can only explain the existence of a correlation, not causation, between decreased deep thinking and increasing reliance on artificial intelligence. This scientific field remains new and is still evolving.
On the other hand, artificial intelligence is not always a negative thing. You may find that it can inspire creativity or encourage learning when not used as the sole source for answers or solutions.
