Heavy reliance on AI undermines academic performance and teamwork; teaching how to use it well matters

Survey data from 26 students showed a meaningful difference in exam score changes depending on whether they used AI for homework.

Students who did not use AI showed a tendency for exam scores to rise in proportion to their homework scores. Students who used AI showed the opposite: the higher their homework scores, the lower their exam scores.

In the AI era, literacy has become a matter of survival, more than any other ability. Collaborating effectively with AI requires a high level of comprehension.

Building literacy through reading is the core foundation for using AI technology, and it works as an essential competency in the AI era.

Literacy also acts as a factor that deepens the rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer divide. People with high literacy expand their knowledge through more reading and enrich their lives, while those who find reading difficult drift further away from it, and the gap in their lives widens.

People who are not familiar with books feel barriers to accessing new knowledge, and over the long term this hinders personal growth.

A study published in 2023 found that employees who interacted frequently with AI during work hours reported feeling lonelier. This suggests that dependence on AI can negatively affect human relationships.

High dependence on AI can lower helping behavior and affiliation needs among colleagues, which can also harm cooperation and communication within organizations.

This differs from the approach of other educators who ban AI use.

However, simply entering a problem into AI and copying its answer is regarded as the worst strategy. He stresses that AI should be used as a tool, accompanied by a process of independent thinking and critical review.

This undermines their ability to think deeply and find creative solutions.

When AI is used only to gather information for drafting a proposal, the result is a uniform, identical output. Output that outsources thinking to AI without personal deliberation is likely to be the weakest possible answer.

In the early stage, both groups that received AI help improved their problem-solving performance and confidence.

However, when tested without AI, the group that used the answer-providing GPT scored 17% lower than the group that had not used AI. By contrast, the group that studied with the thinking-guiding tutor showed a much smaller drop.

These results suggest that when the thinking process is over-outsourced to AI, a phenomenon called 'brain hollowing,' in which the brain deteriorates, can occur. AI that supports the thinking process has a more positive effect on learning than simply providing answers.

If the challenge is too weak, civilization stagnates; if it is too strong, civilization collapses.

Egypt's Nile flooding, China's Yellow River flood control, and ancient Greece's rugged terrain are examples of challenges civilizations faced, and human creative responses to them drove development. Each civilization grew by turning crisis into opportunity and seeking new solutions.

In the 21st century, AI is a massive challenge facing humanity, and how humans creatively respond to it will shape the direction of future civilization. Rather than viewing AI merely as a tool, we should recognize it as a new stimulus that can draw out human potential.

It warns against the tendency of AI to take over even areas that require human care, and stresses the importance of redefining the essential role and value of people within organizations.

Beyond simple knowledge acquisition, it is important to build literacy and strengthen uniquely human capabilities as AI technology advances. Organizations should use AI to improve efficiency while creating an environment where members can communicate, cooperate, and solve problems creatively.