Are we forgetting how to think if AI thinks for us?

People have always outsourced mental work: phone numbers to the phone, directions to the navigation system, calculations to the calculator. Researchers call this cognitive offloading. It makes sense, because it frees the mind for other things. With AI, for the first time, thinking itself can be outsourced: arguing, formulating, weighing options.

Early studies point to side effects. A survey of over 600 people in 2025 found a link between frequent AI use and weaker critical thinking, especially among younger people. In an experiment at MIT, most participants who had written an essay with ChatGPT could not correctly recall a single sentence from it shortly afterward. Both are early findings with small samples. But they point in a direction: what we do not think through ourselves does not stick.

A simple order helps: think it through yourself first, then ask the AI, then critically check the result.