"Cognitive surrender" leads AI users to abandon logical thinking, research finds

When it comes to tools based on large language models, there are generally two broad categories of users. On one side are those who view AI as a powerful but sometimes flawed service that requires careful human oversight and review to detect reasoning or factual flaws in responses. On the other side are those who regularly entrust their critical thinking to what they view as an all-knowing machine.

Recent research goes a long way toward forming a new psychological framework for this second group, who regularly engage in “cognitive abandonment” in the face of seemingly authoritative AI responses. This research also provides an experimental examination of when and why people are willing to hand over their critical thinking to AI, and how factors such as time pressure and external incentives may affect this decision.

Just ask the answering machine

In “Thinking: Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Dropout,” researchers at the University of Pennsylvania sought to build on existing studies that describe two broad categories of decision-making: one shaped by “rapid, intuitive, and affective processing” (System 1); and another shaped by “slow, deliberative and analytical reasoning” (System 2). According to the researchers, the emergence of AI systems has created a new third category of “artificial cognition” in which decisions are driven by “external, automated reasoning based on data coming from algorithmic systems rather than the human mind.”

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