Is AI making the human race dumber?

sjastro · Wednesday at 7:45 PM

First of all is the Flynn effect where IQ has gradually increased over the past century due to various factors such as education and improved nutrition but has plateaued since around 2010.

While this predates the AI revolution latest studies studies indicate an anti-Flynn effect may now be in effect with IQ scores falling.
A reason for this is an over reliance on AI resulting in diminished skills for independent problem solving.

Light weight report.

AI Is Making You Dumber, Microsoft Researchers Say

AI can speed up the completion of menial tasks and boost productivity, but it might also be making us dumber — or so suggests a new study by Microsoft.

www.forbes.com

Heavier academic paper.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf

AV1611VET · Wednesday at 7:50 PM

Eyes barn ignit; eyes die ignit.

I don't need to blaim my stoopidity on AI.

Gene2memE · Wednesday at 7:56 PM

My experience is the spread of AI-generate search results and summaries are INCREASING the amount of work I have perform in order to locate and read reliable information.

I recently disabled AI-generated search results in Firefox, but I've not done the same in Chrome. The difference in terms of being able to find what information I want, and the speed at which I can do so, is night and day.

The biggest thing with AI has been reading a lot of "wait, what?" statements. I'll look at an AI generated summary and find something total incongruous, out of place or obviously in error. So I'll check the data point, statement of fact or whatever and find that roughly 2 out of 3 times it will be wrong (or in error in some other fashion, like being years out of date).

However, I've got nearly 20 years of experience in my subject area. It's going to be so hard for people without that expertise to parse what's real and what's not.

Bradskii · Wednesday at 8:46 PM

sjastro said:
First of all is the Flynn effect where IQ has gradually increased over the past century due to various factors such as education and improved nutrition but has plateaued since around 2010.

Might be the least of our problems: Amazon.com

I'm reading it now. From the blurb:

'In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next.'

I'm pretty sceptical at the moment.

Richard T · Wednesday at 11:38 PM

Ai is great at locating paraphrases of scripture. I use it to find all sorts of stuff as well. I do find that sometimes it can be wrong. If the info it pulls data from is bad, the Ai version may also be bad. If the data conflicts it may not report anything about the lesser though sometimes important alternatives.

Hans Blaster · Thursday at 12:08 AM

Richard T said:
Ai is great at locating paraphrases of scripture. I use it to find all sorts of stuff as well. I do find that sometimes it can be wrong. If the info it pulls data from is bad, the Ai version may also be bad. If the data conflicts it may not report anything about the lesser though sometimes important alternatives.

Are paraphrases really needed? Most scripture quotes I see are quite short.

sjastro · Thursday at 1:13 AM

Gene2memE said:
My experience is the spread of AI-generate search results and summaries are INCREASING the amount of work I have perform in order to locate and read reliable information.

I recently disabled AI-generated search results in Firefox, but I've not done the same in Chrome. The difference in terms of being able to find what information I want, and the speed at which I can do so, is night and day.

The biggest thing with AI has been reading a lot of "wait, what?" statements. I'll look at an AI generated summary and find something total incongruous, out of place or obviously in error. So I'll check the data point, statement of fact or whatever and find that roughly 2 out of 3 times it will be wrong (or in error in some other fashion, like being years out of date).

However, I've got nearly 20 years of experience in my subject area. It's going to be so hard for people without that expertise to parse what's real and what's not.

I've used AI to find solutions to test cases I have worked on in the past.
AI has covered the spectrum, coming up with similar solutions, some novel which I think could have worked, to outright bad which if I had adopted would have led to a jail sentence.
In all cases however AI had access to infinite resources, in the real world of forensic engineering the limiting factor was financial support from senior management.
If the problem was serious enough where safety was compromised the restrictions came off, which leads to an ethical and moral question for AI, should financial restrictions be removed to solve a safety related problem which could involve loss of life?
I asked this type of question as AI responses in the past would have done a psychopath or sociopath proud.

In forensic engineering for the automotive sector, financial constraints imposed by senior management are always a limiting factor. However, when human life or public safety is at risk, the ethical and professional responsibilities of scientists and engineers mean the calculus should change significantly:

Science and Engineering ethics: Codes of practice (such as those from ASME, IEEE, or Engineers Australia) emphasize that the safety, health, and welfare of the public take precedence over financial considerations. If a risk to life is identified, a scientist or engineer is obligated to act, regardless of managerial cost-cutting pressure.

Legal obligations: In most jurisdictions, knowingly allowing a design, process, or product that could cause harm exposes both the company and individuals to liability (civil and sometimes criminal). Courts rarely accept “cost limitations” as a defense when lives are endangered.

Practical constraints: While financial resources are always finite, the prioritization should shift. Instead of asking “what’s the cheapest way to proceed?”, management and scientists and engineers must ask “what is the minimum acceptable level of investigation and remediation to ensure safety?”

Risk management perspective: If the potential consequence is death or serious injury, the acceptable risk threshold is extremely low. This means greater resources must be justified and allocated—even if this temporarily strains budgets. Failing to do so creates catastrophic financial and reputational risks in addition to moral failure.

So, to answer directly: yes, the approach should change when human life is at risk. Financial limits cannot ethically or legally override the duty to protect people.

sjastro · Thursday at 1:26 AM

Bradskii said:
Might be the least of our problems: Amazon.com

I'm reading it now. From the blurb:

'In 2023, hundreds of AI luminaries signed an open letter warning that artificial intelligence poses a serious risk of human extinction. Since then, the AI race has only intensified. Companies and countries are rushing to build machines that will be smarter than any person. And the world is devastatingly unprepared for what would come next.'

I'm pretty sceptical at the moment.

If the human race is becoming dumber building machines smarter than us should eventually become a piece of cake.

Larniavc · Thursday at 4:02 AM

Richard T said:
Ai is great at locating paraphrases of scripture. I use it to find all sorts of stuff as well. I do find that sometimes it can be wrong. If the info it pulls data from is bad, the Ai version may also be bad. If the data conflicts it may not report anything about the lesser though sometimes important alternatives.

Deuteronomy 4:2 "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you."

Better to get it from the source.

Servus · Thursday at 4:59 AM

Q AI: Is AI making the human race dumber?

That's a sharp question — and one that cuts to the heart of our evolving relationship with technology. The short answer is: AI isn't inherently making us dumber, but it can enable intellectual laziness if we let it. Here's a deeper take:

How AI Can Make Us Smarter:

Amplifies Human Capability: AI can process vast data instantly, helping us make better decisions, faster.
Democratizes Knowledge: Complex topics are more accessible than ever. Anyone with internet access can learn anything.
Frees Up Cognitive Load: Offloading repetitive or low-level tasks lets us focus on more creative, strategic thinking.

⚠️ How AI Could Be Making Us Dumber:

Erosion of Critical Thinking: When people blindly accept AI outputs without questioning them, it weakens critical faculties.
Dependency: Relying on AI for even simple tasks (like basic math, writing, or decision-making) can atrophy our own abilities.
Decreased Memory: Why remember facts when you can just ask AI? This "Google effect" has been around before AI, but it's intensifying now.

So What’s the Real Issue?

It’s not that AI makes people dumber — it’s that we choose how to use it, and our habits shape our intellect. If people use AI as a crutch rather than a tool, yes, skills will degrade. But if we use it as a partner in thinking, it can raise the collective ceiling of human potential.

✅ Bottom Line:

AI is like a calculator for the mind — helpful, fast, and powerful. But if we forget how to think because we only use it, that’s on us. So the challenge is staying mentally active, questioning, learning, and not handing the keys to our brains over to the machines.

Would you say you’ve become more reliant on AI in your own thinking or productivity?

Servus · Thursday at 5:04 AM

AI said something that brought back the memory of all the fuss there was over kids getting access to pocket calculators in the 70s. That they were going to bypass having to learn math and create intellectual laziness and cause IQs to drop.

Tuur · Thursday at 5:04 AM

sjastro said:
I've used AI to find solutions to test cases I have worked on in the past.

My encounters with AI are spotty and mixed. Have seen someone use it to make a simple sign for a pressure washer. That's a "Dude, really?" instance. Have also had an encounter recently that gave me pause due to the ramifications where an AI solved a simple math word problem. The whole point of word problems is applying what you learned to things you might encounter. You learn to sort through the information that is pertinent to the problem and ignore the rest. Saw the AI solve it instantly. I can practically guarantee any kid with access to a computer or smart phone would have the AI do the homework, thus not practicing how to apply what was taught.

Then was told that the grade level had solar powered calculators rather than working out the math themselves.

Tuur · Thursday at 5:29 AM

Servus said:
AI said something that brought back the memory of all the fuss there was over kids getting access to pocket calculators in the 70s. That they were going to create intellectual laziness and cause IQs to drop.

I was a lazy student. I didn't like memorizing multiplication tables, and would look for a "dodge" to get around it. For a computation aid, there were grids of numbers with columns and rows marked from 1 to 12 and the intersection point the product of the row and column number. That was banned in class, of course, but didn't prevent me from making my own. How did a kid who didn't know his multiplication tables make one? By simply adding. Idea was to have one available on the sly.

The end result was that it slowed me down in math. Even when the table was available, it was slower than remembering the produce of 12 x 12 is 144. It got so bad that I bought a drug store slide rule and taught myself how to use that simply to do multiplication. That would later help when we got to scientific notation and work with exponents, but right then it didn't help me in class because, like the table, it wasn't allowed.

End result was that by the time I buckled down and memorized the tables, it had affected my ability to do mental math. To this day I find it easier to mentally work the problems as fractions if I can. One side effect of being slow with mental math is checking the results of a calculator or spreadsheet or even the tally of a receipt. You can do it, but it's like an ox plodding along.

What's so bad is I now encounter people who now find it difficult to make change. Have you ever seen Support Your Local Outlaw, where James Garner tells Jack Elam "I'm slow, but you're slower?" That's the situation here. They never played Monopoly?

I carry a cheap solar powered scientific calculator in my shirt pocket. Granted it's like carrying around a pocket edition of trig and log tables, but when I'm figuring something like gas mileage, guess what I reach for.

Yes, something a simple as pocket calculators has an impact. Been there, done that, and wore out the souvenir tee shirt.

Jerry N. · Thursday at 5:42 AM

Servus said:
Q AI: Is AI making the human race dumber?

That's a sharp question — and one that cuts to the heart of our evolving relationship with technology. The short answer is: AI isn't inherently making us dumber, but it can enable intellectual laziness if we let it. Here's a deeper take:

How AI Can Make Us Smarter:

Amplifies Human Capability: AI can process vast data instantly, helping us make better decisions, faster.

Democratizes Knowledge: Complex topics are more accessible than ever. Anyone with internet access can learn anything.

Frees Up Cognitive Load: Offloading repetitive or low-level tasks lets us focus on more creative, strategic thinking.

⚠️ How AI Could Be Making Us Dumber:

Erosion of Critical Thinking: When people blindly accept AI outputs without questioning them, it weakens critical faculties.

Dependency: Relying on AI for even simple tasks (like basic math, writing, or decision-making) can atrophy our own abilities.

Decreased Memory: Why remember facts when you can just ask AI? This "Google effect" has been around before AI, but it's intensifying now.

So What’s the Real Issue?

It’s not that AI makes people dumber — it’s that we choose how to use it, and our habits shape our intellect. If people use AI as a crutch rather than a tool, yes, skills will degrade. But if we use it as a partner in thinking, it can raise the collective ceiling of human potential.

✅ Bottom Line:

AI is like a calculator for the mind — helpful, fast, and powerful. But if we forget how to think because we only use it, that’s on us. So the challenge is staying mentally active, questioning, learning, and not handing the keys to our brains over to the machines.

Would you say you’ve become more reliant on AI in your own thinking or productivity?

Great post! I use AI to write or improve code. It did a poor job a few months ago, but it is much better now, and I have used it to simplify my own code writing. I tend to write 4 lines of code where two lines would do the job. AI helps. I also found it useful in finding out who said what. I have a quote in my head and can’t remember who said it. AI makes it much faster to find the original source, and it corrects errors in my memory of quotes. On the other hand, I don’t like AI’s “human-like” interaction that is too agreeable. If you tell it that it is wrong, AI often agrees and makes apologies even if it was right.

In the first few years of college, I used a slide rule. You had to be able to estimate the correct answer in your head to get the decimal point right. Years later, young engineers would show me calculations done by computers, and they didn’t have enough basic skills to see that the computer solution was ridiculous. They had no idea what the correct solution should look like. It is not just laziness. It is a lack of foundational skills. This will only get worse.
(edit) There were calculators when I started college, but they required something I didn’t have—money.

AV1611VET · Thursday at 8:30 AM

Servus said:
AI said something that brought back the memory of all the fuss there was over kids getting access to pocket calculators in the 70s. That they were going to bypass having to learn math and create intellectual laziness and cause IQs to drop.

1. Thanks to calculators, kids can't do math.
2. Thanks to Velcro, kids can't tier their shoes.
3. Thanks to spell checkers, kids can't spell anymore.

How many kids nowadays can address an envelope?

Servus · Thursday at 9:34 AM

AV1611VET said:
1. Thanks to calculators, kids can't do math.
2. Thanks to Velcro, kids can't tier their shoes.
3. Thanks to spell checkers, kids can't spell anymore.

How many kids nowadays can address an envelope?

I'm an old man and it's been about a decade since I last addressed an envelope.

Hentenza · Thursday at 9:49 AM

The problem with AI, as it presently exists, is that it uses all of the internet to come up with answers. Sometimes that includes Reddit, TikTok, and other social media sites. So to AI if it’s in the internet then it must be true.

AV1611VET · Thursday at 10:15 AM

Servus said:
I'm an old man and it's been about a decade since I last addressed an envelope.

Same here!

AV1611VET · Thursday at 10:18 AM

Hentenza said:
The problem with AI, as it presently exists, is that it uses all of the internet to come up with answers. Sometimes that includes Reddit, TikTok, and other social media sites. So to AI if it’s in the internet then it must be true.

From Tableau:

AI is only as unbiased as the data and people training the programs. So if the data is flawed, impartial, or biased in any way, the resulting AI will be biased as well. The two main types of bias in AI are “data bias” and “societal bias.”

Warden_of_the_Storm · Thursday at 3:11 PM

All the anecdotal evidence I've seen about AI being used for schoolwork and university and college level, and even beyond, suggests that, yes, people are becoming lazier.

But I do not doubt that laziness resulting from AI will result in people becoming just that bit dumber with regard to certain info.

Like, if I have to search something and Google AI answers pop up, I will find what sources the AI is using to see if they're legit or not. And I would say that's not intellectual laziness because I'm looking at what AI is using to find the answers.

Of course, going off anecdotal evidence... it's not a nice picture.

Is AI making the human race dumber?

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