10 minutes of AI use weakens persistence at hard tasks

A study co-authored by a UC Berkeley researcher found that using AI for just 10 minutes significantly impairs people's ability to focus and persist on difficult tasks, raising concerns about cognitive fitness in education and daily life. In randomized controlled trials with 1,222 participants, those who used ChatGPT for fraction problems or SAT reading prompts became less accurate and more likely to give up once the AI tool was removed, while non-AI users maintained persistence and success. The peer-reviewed paper was presented this week at the Conference on Language Modeling. The research, involving scholars from Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA, suggests overreliance on AI removes "productive struggle" and erodes baseline understanding. Researchers recommend AI responses default to instructive, tutor-like guidance to augment rather than supplant human abilities, particularly in science and academia.