New DelhiClaude Shannon, one of the fathers of AI, once wrote rather disparagingly: “I visualise a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I’m rooting for the machines.” Many of us worry that this prophecy is coming true as we enter the era of artificial intelligence (AI), which is arguably the most potent technology available today.
Strong AI models, such as ChatGPT, are capable of producing intricate essays, poetry, and images; Google's Veo creates movies of cinematic quality; and Deep Research agents generate research reports at the touch of a button. Our innate human abilities of thinking, creating, and reasoning seem to be now duplicated, sometimes surpassed, by AI.
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A recent study called "Your Brain on ChatGPT" from the MIT Media Lab seemed to confirm this. It suggested that while AI tools like ChatGPT help us write faster, they may be making our minds slower. Researchers discovered that individuals who used ChatGPT for essay writing showed up to 55% lower brain activity, as measured by EEG signals, compared to those who wrote without assistance during a four-month, painstakingly conducted experiment with 54 participants.
As if this weren't concerning enough, when ChatGPT users were asked to write independently in a subsequent session, their brains continued to be less engaged than those of individuals without AI (referred to as "brain-only" participants in the study). Memory also suffered — only 20% could recall what they had written, and 16% even denied authorship of their own text! The message seemed to be very clear: while it might be efficient to outsource thinking to machines, doing so runs the risk of compromising our ability to think deeply, retain information, and take ownership of ideas.
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The co-founder of AI & Beyond, Jaspreet Bindra, claims that technology has always transformed us and that we have witnessed this narrative numerous times. You used to be able to remember everyone's phone number, but these days you can hardly remember your family's, if at all. If you couldn't recall roads, lanes, and routes, you asked someone or looked at a paper map. These days, Google and other map apps take care of that for us. Facebook reminds us of people's birthdays, and email responses come to us on their own, saving us even a small amount of thought. Will we even remember how to drive when self-driving cars become commonplace, or will we just relax in our seats while they drive us to our destination?
Jonathan Haidt, in his ‘The Anxious Generation,’ points out how smartphones radically reshaped childhood.
??Unstructured outdoor play gave way to scrolling, and social bonds turned into notifications. Attention deficits, loneliness, and anxiety among teenagers all increased. From calculators diminishing our mental arithmetic, to GPS weakening our spatial memory, every tool we invent alters us — subtly or drastically.
“Do we shape our tools, or do our tools shape us?” is a quote commonly misattributed to Marshall McLuhan, but this question is hauntingly relevant in the age of AI. What happens to our ability to think, reflect, reason, and learn if we allow machines to think? Children are particularly concerned about this, especially in India. For one, India has the highest usage of ChatGPT globally. Most of it is by children and young adults, who are turning into passive consumers of AI-generated knowledge.
Imagine a 16-year-old using ChatGPT to write a history essay. The output might be near-perfect, but what has she actually learned? The MIT study suggests — very little. Without effortful recall or critical thinking, she might not retain concepts, nor build the muscle of articulation. With exams still based on memory and original expression, and careers requiring problem-solving, this is a silent but real risk.
However, the true questions are not whether the study is accurate or overstated, or whether AI is making us less intelligent, but rather what we can do about it. We definitely need some guardrails and precautions, and we need to start building them now. I believe that we should teach ourselves and our children to:
Ask the right questions: As answers become commodities, asking the right questions will be the differentiator. We must reconsider our pedagogy and educational system in order to revive this special human ability of curiosity. Intelligence is not just about answers. It has to do with having the guts to consider, question, and produce.
Turn homework and classwork around: Set aside class time for "brain-only" exercises like journaling, debating, and mental math. Homework can be about using AI tools to learn what will be discussed in class the next day.
AI usage guidelines: Schools should establish explicit guidelines for when and how AI can be used, just as they do for smartphone use.
Teacher-AI synergy: Train educators to use AI as a co-teacher, and not a crutch. AI should be viewed as augmented intelligence rather than an alternative.
Make everyone AI literate above all else: Knowing how to use AI effectively is the new essential skill of our time, much like reading, writing, and math were fundamental in the digital age. AI literacy is more than just knowing prompts.
It means understanding when to use AI, and when not to; how to verify AI output for accuracy, bias, and logic; how to collaborate with AI without losing your own voice, and how to maintain cognitive and ethical agency in the age of intelligent machines. Just as we once taught ‘reading, writing, adding, multiplying,’ we must now teach ‘thinking, prompting, questioning, verifying.’
Humans are adaptable, as history demonstrates. Calculators did not end arithmetic, the printing press did not destroy memory, and smartphones did not eliminate communication. We evolved with them—sometimes clumsily, but always creatively. Today, with AI, the challenge is deeper because it imitates human cognition.
In fact, human intelligence and connection will be even more valued as AI pushes us to higher levels of creativity and cognition. Take chess: a computer defeated Gary Kasparov in chess back in 1997; since then, a computer or AI can defeat any chess champion a hundred times out of a hundred. However, as millions of people watch D Gukesh's matches with Magnus Carlsen, human "brains-only" chess has grown significantly in popularity. Therefore, we can become wiser rather than weaker if we develop AI literacy, put the proper safeguards in place, and teach ourselves and our kids to think with AI but not through it.
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