The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking

Full title: "The Impact of Generative AI on Critical Thinking: Self-Reported Reductions in Cognitive Effort and Confidence Effects From a Survey of Knowledge Workers", first viewed and discussed on Bluesky.

• "higher confidence in GenAI is associated with less critical thinking, while higher self-confidence is associated with more critical thinking...
• GenAI shifts the nature of critical thinking toward information verification, response integration, and task stewardship".

A good opening: LLMs are "the latest in a long line of technologies that raise questions about their impact on the quality of human thought, a line that includes writing (objected to by Socrates), printing (Trithemius), calculators (maths teachers), and the Internet."

And it's "not unfounded... by mechanising routine tasks and leaving exception-handling to the human user, you deprive the user of the routine opportunities to practice their judgement", so they're less prepared for those exceptions.

This paper focuses on critical thinking for knowledge work, which is challenging as we don't know "what kinds of knowledge work activities are considered by professionals to require critical thinking". What we do know is "“mechanised convergence”... users with access to GenAI tools produce a less diverse set of outcomes for the same task".

But while "Output diversity is a proxy for critical thinking", it's flawed: "we lack direct empirical evidence for ... a connection between mechanised convergence and critical thinking". Hence this study focuses on two questions:

RQ1 When and how do knowledge workers perceive the enaction of critical thinking when using GenAI?

"knowledge workers engage in critical thinking when using GenAI tools primarily to ensure the quality of their work". Critical thinking means to them that they set clear goals, refine their prompts and assess the AI-generated result, including "verifying outputs against external sources and their own expertise", particularly in risk-intolerant tasks.

RQ2 When and why do knowledge workers perceive increased/decreased effort for critical thinking due to GenAI?

"GenAI tools appear to reduce the perceived effort required for critical thinking... especially when they have higher confidence in AI... However, workers who are confident in their own skills tend to perceive greater effort..., particularly when evaluating and applying AI responses" - ie those who know what they're talking about seem to find assessing an AI's efforts as more work than those who are confident in the AI. Hardly surprising.

• "GenAI tools reduce the perceived effort of critical thinking while encouraging over-reliance on AI...
• confidence in the tool often diminishes independent problem-solving
• As workers shift from task execution to AI oversight, they trade hands-on engagement for the challenge of verifying and editing AI outputs, revealing both the efficiency gains and the risks of diminished critical reflection"