Microsoft, one of the biggest AI promoters out there, says AI affects people's critical thinking abilities. Now what?

In a twisted turn of events, Microsoft, one of the world’s most prominent AI ambassadors (if not the most), has released a study examining how using Generative AI (GenAI) in work affects people’s critical thinking ability.

It surveyed 319 workers to determine when and how they use critical thinking with GenAI and why it impacts their critical thinking effort. The participants shared 936 examples of using GenAI for work tasks.

The study found that people more confident in their abilities tend to think more critically when using GenAI. On the other hand, those who have high confidence in GenAI tend to think less critically. GenAI changes how people think critically. Instead of deep analysis, they focus more on checking information, combining responses, and managing tasks.

The study, which can be read here (or accessed in its entirety here), doesn’t want to position AI in a bad place, though, and it states that this is an opportunity for tech giants to develop AI models that are aware of this fact.

However, aside from the apparent fact (we needed a study to confirm, but it was obvious), it’s going to be interesting to see how Microsoft will approach this stance. There are several directions the Redmond-based tech giant could take:

1. Develop Copilot into a Windows assisting tool that could help users strictly with Windows-related issues, such as errors in installing the latest Windows update. Copilot could chime in, and solve the problem.
2. Allow Copilot only to summarize and correct documents, not create them entirely. For example, Copilot could be enhanced not to provide drafts of emails, documents, and so on, but it could assist with correcting the document.
3. Turn Copilot into a chat-assisting AI tool, which is most likely the direction Microsoft is envisioning for it. We recently discovered that the Redmond-based tech giant patented a technology that sees Copilot assisting multiple users at once in a chat-like platform. The AI tool would solve conversation-related tasks, such as searching in chat for documents or even coming up with ideas for various hangouts.

It’s not a surprise that AI diminishes critical thinking, but Microsoft can turn things around while the technology is still in its infancy. We’ll see. What do you think?