Are We Losing Our Ability to Think? Striking a Balance with AI in Education and Society

In a lecture hall somewhere, a professor asks their students to write essays analyzing the societal effects of automation. One student, eager to save time, opens ChatGPT, enters the prompt, tweaks the response, and submits it. The essay is polished—structured, nuanced, and articulate. But the student? They barely engaged with the material, relying solely on artificial intelligence to think for them.

This isn’t a story of ingenuity—it’s a story of intellectual offloading. The allure of generative AI tools like ChatGPT is undeniable, yet as we embrace these technologies, a critical question confronts us: Are these tools helping us think more deeply, or are we outsourcing and surrendering our essential human skill to think independently?

Generative AI has the potential to drive us toward new depths of understanding, to expand the boundaries of what we can conceptualize and create. But this depends entirely on how we use it.

The Rise of Intellectual Offloading

Education is undergoing a seismic transformation, driven by generative AI tools like ChatGPT. Eighty-six percent of students globally now use AI tools in their studies, and two-thirds rely on ChatGPT specifically to tackle academic challenges. For many, it’s a shortcut—summaries without reading, essays without drafting, and ideas without struggling to form them.

Tasks that used to challenge mental boundaries are increasingly being “outsourced” to technology. Instead of grappling with problems, students simply “toss it over the fence,” relying on AI to do the heavy lifting, then passing the results off as their own. The danger here isn’t laziness—it’s a growing lack of engagement with intellectual processes.

This trend undermines the purpose of education: fostering critical thinking, creativity, and intellectual grit. Fifty-eight percent of students now report they lack sufficient knowledge and skills to assess AI critically, and nearly half feel unprepared for a workplace where AI is pervasive.

The problem extends beyond schools. In the workforce, where critical thinking and problem-solving are essential skills, high-paying professions like management and engineering are also increasingly exposed to AI tools like ChatGPT. As automation takes the lead in generating solutions, will tomorrow’s workers still have the creativity and resilience to innovate?

But there’s good news. The outcome isn’t fixed—AI doesn’t have to diminish intellectual capacities. With intentional use, it can become a powerful amplifier of human thought.

The Virtuous Cycle of AI Amplification

Generative AI, when used thoughtfully, has immense potential to enhance human engagement with ideas. Instead of replacing intellectual effort, it can increase our capacity to think critically, spark curiosity, and push the boundaries of our creativity.

Imagine a student approaching ChatGPT not as a crutch, but as a collaborator. They might feed the AI an essay outline, asking it to challenge their assumptions or propose alternative perspectives. The AI’s responses then fuel their own analytical process, helping them refine their arguments and explore new angles. This isn’t intellectual offloading—it’s a virtuous cycle, where AI acts as an amplifier, pushing human thought to new heights.

Teachers, too, are beginning to unlock AI’s potential. Recent data shows that nearly 50% of educators use AI to tailor lesson content to students' specific learning needs, while others leverage AI for routine tasks like assessment creation, freeing up time for more meaningful, creative teaching.

The question isn’t whether students and educators should use AI. It’s about guiding how they use it. Without thoughtful intent, reliance on these tools could lead to passivity. But with clear direction, AI can inspire deeper intellectual engagement.

The Broader Societal Implications

This core debate—whether AI displaces effort or amplifies it—extends far beyond education. Across industries, AI tools are revolutionizing work. High-stakes professions like law and engineering are incorporating AI in ways that promise efficiency but also pose challenges to workforce preparedness.

The numbers speak for themselves: The global demand for AI-related jobs has increased 11.3 times since 2015, but more than half of current demand for these skills remains unmet. Beyond the technical, workers and organizations must adapt culturally by partnering with AI tools actively, rather than delegating innovation entirely to machines.

Whether in classrooms or boardrooms, the fundamental challenge remains the same: Will AI liberate people from tedious tasks so they can focus on higher-order problem-solving, or will it erode the very skills that make such problem-solving possible? This choice is about more than technology. It’s about values. In our pursuit of efficiency, we must remain vigilant about preserving the habits of critical thought, creativity, and wonder that define human progress.

What Now?

Navigating this fork in the road requires us to rethink how we treat AI tools in education, work, and life. Avoiding the dangers of intellectual offloading, while maximizing AI’s potential as a thinking amplifier, will demand effort and culture shifts at every level.

🎯️ For educators and students: AI literacy must go beyond functionality. Schools and universities should teach students to critically evaluate AI outputs—where they succeed, where they fail, and how they can be improved. Assignments should be designed to encourage inquiry, debate, and the integration of AI tools into larger intellectual frameworks.

🎯️ For institutions and workplaces: Leaders must prioritize development programs that train workers not only to use AI tools effectively, but also to question their assumptions and outputs. Collaboration with AI—questioning and refining its contributions—should be incentivized over blind acceptance.

🎯️ For society as a whole: We must shift our values. Efficiency cannot be the sole driver of AI adoption. We need to reinvigorate appreciation for the process of thinking itself. If we look at AI only as a shortcut, we’ll overlook its ability to help us explore new intellectual terrains.

An Opportunity

AI’s emergence in education and society is, at its core, an opportunity. It’s like fire—a tool that has immense transformative potential, but one that must be wielded wisely. Will students and workers use AI as a partner in growth, or will they passively rely on it to think for them?

The answer is ours to decide. However we proceed, one truth is clear: A future where AI coexists with meaningful human thought and creativity will not arrive passively. We have to build it with intention, ensuring that as the boundaries of technology expand, so too do the boundaries of human potential.