Is Artificial Intelligence Making Our Brains More Lazy?

In an in-depth investigation published by The New York Times, authors Dylan Friedman and Julianna Castro Varon questioned whether the growing reliance on chatbots for thinking is making our brains slower and less engaged. According to the investigation, recent research suggests that artificial intelligence is changing the way humans, particularly young people, learn and remember, in ways we do not yet fully understand.

The investigation was based on a large-scale study conducted by a team from the University of California, Irvine, in collaboration with the educational company McGraw Hill. Researchers analyzed a full decade of data from a popular e-learning tool, which included millions of math sessions involving students ranging from fifth graders to university students. The researchers compared performance before 2022, when ChatGPT first emerged, with work completed afterward.

The results revealed a significant decrease in learning time on problems where AI assistance was available. Among university students, learning time declined by 2.8 percent per quarter after the launch of ChatGPT, accumulating to a 26.9 percent drop over eleven quarters. High school students recorded a 31.3 percent decline in learning time. Although students completed tasks faster, test results showed a decline in acquired skills, indicating that speed came at the expense of deep learning.

In a related context, a report issued by a committee at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) warned against a phenomenon dubbed “cognitive surrender,” where students increasingly rely on AI for answers rather than attempting solutions themselves, bypassing traditional educational practices such as office hours and group study. The committee stated in its report, released last August, that obtaining answers from a chatbot can create an “illusion of learning” among students who turn to AI “at the first sign of difficulty.”

A separate study conducted by MIT researchers, involving 54 participants aged 18 to 39, showed that participants who used ChatGPT as a writing assistant exhibited less brain activity while writing compared to those who wrote without assistance. Natalia Kosmyna, a co-researcher on the study, stated, “None of the memory networks that would have actually helped you remember were activated.” The study found that those who used AI as a writing assistant struggled to remember what they had written just minutes after completing their essays.

* UC Irvine and McGraw Hill study: Analysis of millions of math sessions on the “ALEKS” educational platform revealed a 26.9 percent decrease in learning time for university students and a 31.3 percent decrease for high school students, accompanied by a decline in test scores.

* MIT report (August 2026): Warned of “cognitive surrender” among students, noting that immediate recourse to AI at the first difficulty creates an “illusion of learning” and hinders actual learning.

The investigation raised a fundamental question: Is AI leading us to a generation that loses the ability to think critically and retain knowledge? According to researchers, the answer remains unsettled, but growing evidence suggests that unrestricted use of AI in education may incur high cognitive costs in the long term—costs that are not reflected in task completion speed, but rather in the quality of understanding and the depth of knowledge students retain.