When Thinking Gets Outsourced
What a new MIT study on ChatGPT reveals about learning, reinforcement, and culture change
A new MIT study on ChatGPT found that students who used the AI tool showed the lowest brain engagement and cognitive effort over time. While I see important limitations to this study, the behavioral implications are worth considering. This is not just about AI; it’s about how reinforcement drives behavior, about what happens when thinking stops being reinforced.
These tools are everywhere now. In workplaces and everyday life, AI is becoming an integral part of how we search, brainstorm, and interact. President Trump issued an Executive Order earlier this spring to work towards integrating AI into schools. AI is not going away. Used well, I do believe AI can increase productivity, support brainstorming, and even deepen understanding. However, the way we use them and the rewards we receive for doing so can subtly reshape how we think. If we’re consistently reinforced for speed, ease, and easy output, then habits such as curiosity, reflection, and reasoning will start to fade. This is a critical time in society, and we must consider one key question: What happens to a culture when shortcuts are prioritized over critical thinking?
Reinforcement, AI, and the Culture of Convenience
In behavioral science, reinforcement wires us. We repeat the behaviors that get reinforced and gradually abandon the ones that don’t. The students in the study weren’t just using ChatGPT; they were being encouraged to prioritize speed and efficiency and rewarded for outsourcing their thinking. The result showed lower brain activity, reduced engagement, and more reliance on AI. ChatGPT didn’t make them lazy, but it did reinforce passive behavior. When reinforcement patterns shift, so do our behavior, learning, and ultimately, our culture. This is the same reason why culture change efforts become stagnant, and new initiatives often fail; it’s because we reinforce the wrong behaviors.
What the MIT Study Tells Us About AI in Education
This new data shows a truth that applies to the classroom, organizations, and social systems. If we reinforce shortcuts, we lose the habits that built critical thinking, rigor, and true learning. Some will interpret this study as a call to halt the development of AI. I do disagree with that. The issue is not AI itself; it is just how we use it. AI can be an incredible support, but only if we ensure that it enhances thinking rather than replacing it. This means work needs to be done to create environments that intentionally reinforce the habits of engagement (curiosity, evaluation, reflection, and skepticism). If we want to see these behaviors in our systems, we need to reinforce them.
Where Do We Go from Here?
This study serves as a reminder that the habits we reinforce, whether intentionally or not, shape our future capacity, which includes our ability to think. In schools, at work, and in our online interactions, the same question applies: Are we reinforcing the behaviors we want to see grow? That question isn’t just about AI, it is about all of culture. If we want people to think critically, it will take stopping the rewarding of speed, convenience, and “copy-paste” behavior, and instead designing environments that reinforce the habits of thought.
A Note for Those Wanting More
I recently shared the behavioral science behind why most big ideas fail and what actually creates lasting culture change. That post includes a framework and a practical tool you can use to apply it in your own school, team, or organization (available to paid subscribers). If this topic resonates with you, I’d love to have you join as a paid subscriber.
Additionally, paid subscribers also get free access to my upcoming live course starting July 23, a 3-part series on rebuilding thoughtful habits in a digital world that often rewards speed and noise over clarity and reason. All sessions will be recorded and sent out if you are unable to join live.
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So well written. You named the tradeoff so many people are already living through, but haven’t yet paused to see.
I’ve been writing about this too, how reflection, curiosity, and taste are quietly becoming the most critical layers of thinking in the AI era. The more we reward speed and convenience, the more invisible the cost becomes: not just cognitive atrophy, but identity drift.
Thank you for holding this thread with care. It’s one of the most important ones we have right now.
Being a mindful sceptic, I love this 😉
And as the 80s girl band Bananarama so proclaimed, ‘it ain't what you do its the way that you do it’ and I find brainstorming with AI a true learning experience because I have decades of knowing how to learn.
But the cynic in me worries that if you are an authoritarian, putting the bots in the classroom is exactly what you would do.