I’ve been thinking about how artificial intelligence might be affecting the way young people develop their thinking abilities. It seems like with all these AI tools doing the work for them, kids and teenagers might not be learning how to solve problems on their own anymore.
What worries me is that when everything gets automated, people might stop using their brains to figure things out. I see students using ChatGPT for homework and AI tools for creative projects. While these technologies are amazing, I wonder if we’re creating a generation that depends too much on machines to think for them.
Does anyone else notice this happening? Are we heading toward a future where people can’t think critically because AI has been doing all the heavy lifting? I’d love to hear what others think about this potential problem and whether there are ways to prevent it.
totally agree! its not about bng lazy, but how they can use AI smartly. like, my friend’s son uses it to spark ideas but still does his own thing. teaching them to collaborate with tech is key, not fearing it.
I’ve taught high school for fifteen years, and it’s more complex than simply stating that kids are getting dumber. Yes, their attention spans are shorter, and they often seek instant answers, giving up when faced with challenging problems. However, this generation possesses a keen understanding of bias and information sources, often better than previous ones. They can critically evaluate competing arguments if guided properly. It primarily depends on our approach to using AI in education. Students who engage with AI as thinking partners tend to enhance their analytical skills. In contrast, those relying on AI to avoid hard work find their problem-solving abilities diminish and struggle with challenging questions. We must be strategic—using AI should not preclude the necessity of wrestling with tough concepts, as that struggle cultivates mental resilience.
I work in tech recruitment and I’m noticing something weird. Young candidates have crazy good pattern recognition - they’ll spot data inconsistencies or logical holes way faster than older folks. But ask them to work through a problem step-by-step without tools? They fall apart. In interviews, they’re great at breaking down big problems but can’t manually trace through algorithms or do detailed analysis. What worries me isn’t that they use AI - it’s that they hate uncertainty. They want clear answers fast, so they won’t sit with messy, ambiguous problems long enough to come up with actually innovative solutions.
I’ve seen this play out differently at work. Fresh grads who grew up with AI tools ask way better questions than older generations did at their age.
They’re not losing critical thinking - they’re applying it differently. Instead of grinding through manual calculations or basic research, they focus on the bigger picture and question AI output.
Last month a junior developer caught three major flaws in AI-generated code that two senior engineers missed. She knew exactly what to look for and didn’t trust it blindly.
The real issue isn’t AI making people dumb. It’s people not learning to verify and challenge what AI spits out. Kids who learn good prompting and fact-checking are developing skills we never needed.
Think calculators. We worried they’d ruin math skills decades ago. Now engineers tackle complex problems instead of arithmetic. Same thing here.