Writing at Risk: How AI Threatens Critical Thinking
In recent years, the world has witnessed a surge in artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly generative language models like ChatGPT. These tools can produce coherent, creative, and grammatically correct texts in seconds. While these tools are considered a technological revolution that enhances efficiency and saves time, their excessive use poses a significant risk to the foundations of human cognitive development, specifically writing skills and critical thinking. Blind reliance on machines to replace the mind in these fundamental processes may lead to a gradual decline in the abilities of younger generations to express themselves effectively and think deeply.
Erosion of Basic Writing Skills
Writing is more than just a means of expression; it is a cognitive process that helps organize thoughts, refine arguments, and clarify complex concepts. Good writing requires mental effort that goes through multiple stages, from brainstorming and gathering information to initial formulation, revision, and stylistic and linguistic proofreading.
AI encourages skipping this essential process. When students and writers rely on AI to create articles, reports, or even emails, they deprive themselves of the basic practice that develops their linguistic and compositional skills.
- Dependency and Mental Laziness: The user tends to rely entirely on the ready-made text produced by the machine, which leads to a phenomenon known as cognitive offloading, where the mental effort exerted decreases.
- Weak Structure and Style: When the user’s role is limited to entering a prompt, they lose the opportunity to learn how to organize ideas logically and persuasively. This reduces the development of their expressive style and produces texts characterized by uniformity and homogeneity.
- Loss of Linguistic Accuracy and Literary Taste: Despite AI’s ability to correct errors, not practicing writing weakens the user’s sensitivity to the nuances of language and reduces their conscious mastery of grammar and syntax, which may negatively affect expression in contexts where AI tools are not available.
Decline and Homogeneity in Critical Thinking
The relationship between writing and critical thinking is a close one. Writing is the tool we use to test and evaluate our ideas and arguments. The process of putting a complex idea on paper forces the mind to analyze, detail, and defend it before the reader, including the self.
Over-reliance on AI threatens this ability to think critically in several ways:
- Excessive Trust and Acceptance of Results: When using AI to obtain an analysis or solution to a problem, the user tends to accept the machine’s outputs without scrutiny or critical review. This reduces the skill of analysis, evaluation, and inference, which are the essential components of critical thinking.
- Intellectual Homogeneity: Generative AI models rely on pre-existing data, so their outputs tend to be neutral and homogeneous, mostly representing prevailing trends. This reduces the opportunities for the emergence of innovative ideas, different points of view, or thinking outside the box, leading to a decline in creativity and the flexibility of solutions.
- Weakening of Credibility Assessment: In the past, searching for information required navigating between different sources and evaluating their credibility. Now, AI provides ready-made and concise answers, which disrupts this process. The user becomes a passive recipient of information rather than a researcher and analyst, and their ability to detect misleading information or errors that may be included in AI outputs decreases.
The Need to Reformulate Education and Deal
The AI wheel cannot be stopped, but its use can be redirected. The solution lies in a balance between taking advantage of the efficiency of these tools and preserving cognitive independence. Educational institutions and users must adopt an approach that focuses on:
- Critical Engagement with AI Outputs: Students must be taught how to challenge AI results, question them, and search for their sources. Consider it only an initial draft that requires significant human effort in review and development.
- Focus on the Process, Not the Product: Educational tasks should be directed towards evaluating the writing and thinking process (such as brainstorming, initial drafts, and review records) rather than focusing only on the final product.
The real danger lies not in the existence of AI but in its passive reliance. We must remember that critical thinking and writing are techniques for intellectual development and should not be neglected. To ensure a creative and thoughtful future, the human mind must remain the primary engine, and the machine is only an auxiliary tool without alternative. This article is based on research by Dr. Jalal Kannas, Professor of Economics at Qatar University.
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