In November 2022, ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) system, was launched to the public. It is remarkable for its ability to hold “conversations” with humans. And is capable of interacting, generating images, texts, presentations, and other media using instructions provided by users. Since then, more advanced versions attempting to mimic the workings of the brain have been released at a dizzying pace.
This technology performs diverse functions. For example, if you want to know the key points of a lengthy article, it can summarize it in seconds. It can translate texts just as quickly. And when creating presentations, it can combine text and images elegantly and effectively in a few minutes.
AI has become a structural presence in our lives. In just a few years, it has gone from being a specialized tool to an everyday technology that permeates our personal, professional, and educational routines. Today, it is not only found in large corporations. But also in homes, mobile phones, classrooms, hospitals, and everyday conversations. Its reach is so broad that, in one way or another. Millions of people interact with it every day, often without being fully aware of it.
The domestic use of artificial intelligence has become commonplace at an astonishing rate. One in three users employs it at home for everyday tasks. Such as searching for information, clarifying doubts, receiving personalized advice, or getting help with writing. In fact, more than 70 percent of interactions with ChatGPT are non-work-related. Confirming that its use responds not only to productivity needs but also to a deep integration into personal dynamics. Its use has also skyrocketed among teenagers. One in four used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, double the number in 2023. Among university students, half admit to using it to improve the quality of their academic work.
Also AI responds to three major universal demands: speed, efficiency, and resource optimization. It undoubtedly offers numerous advantages to society. Despite its benefits, it also presents disadvantages, especially if used indiscriminately. For example, it can lead to excessive delegation of our cognitive abilities.
Thinking in a more complex way requires learning and training.
Being able to think in a more complex way, favoring reasoning and critical and flexible thinking, depends in part on the level of prior training. Thinking is a skill that can be learned. This ability, like any other, is maintained and improved through practice. Thinking, even using shortcuts or heuristics, requires effort. So one might conclude that it is tempting to delegate tasks that require thinking to someone else. However, succumbing to the temptation to delegate higher mental functions is not without cost; it has its price.
Consequences of Delegating Cognitive Abilities to AI
Many scientific articles address this issue. In 2024, the Royal National Academy of Medicine of Spain warned that the excessive use of artificial intelligence weakens our memory. Reduces our capacity for critical thinking and independent problem-solving. Also in 2024, a study by Macnamara and colleagues was published in the journal Cognitive Research. Concluding that experts in a field can gradually lose their cognitive abilities by relying on AI to make decisions.
Finally, I would like to mention an article published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2025. It presents the results of a study comparing three groups of university students who differed in how they approached the task of writing a short opinion piece. The first group used only their brains to complete the task, the second only performed traditional internet searches (for example, with Google), and the last only used AI.
After analyzing the data obtained through electroencephalography (EEG), the authors observed that the brains of the third group. Those that only used AI, were less active. This means that the neurons were less connected, resulting in less information flow and less active memory.
Futhermore the central concept of the study is cognitive debt. A cumulative mental cost that arises when we avoid the effort of thinking, writing, or problem-solving on our own. This has future repercussions: reduced memory, loss of creativity, and difficulties in developing our own ideas or in taking ownership of the texts we produce.
In commenting on these findings, I don’t intend to demonize the use of artificial intelligence. But rather to encourage critical reflection on how and when we use it. According to the authors, the order matters: thinking first with our own brains and then using AI as support can preserve cognitive activity. In contrast, letting technology generate the content and only allowing us to edit it puts us in debt to our own mental capacities.
Artificial intelligence is here to stay. But like any powerful tool, it needs to be used judiciously and consciously. The challenge is not to avoid it, but to integrate it without negating our own mental activity. Think first, write in our own words, and only then let AI intervene: that could be the best way to prevent the shortcut from becoming a detour.
Cognitive debt reveals the flip side of the AI revolution. While we celebrate its ability to accelerate tasks and simplify complexity, let’s keep in mind that the more we delegate to it. So the less we exercise the capacities that define our intellectual humanity. The relationship between human intelligence and artificial intelligence is malleable. Deeply dependent on how we choose to incorporate AI into our mental practices.
Technology alone does not impair cognition. It is the uncritical use, premature delegation, and automatic acceptance of its responses that activate this tendency toward the erosion of critical thinking, attention, and intellectual autonomy. The risks are evident and could lead to a society where deep thinking becomes exceptional, creativity is less diverse, and individual judgment is subordinated to systems that many don’t understand. What is currently valued in individuals could become a collective phenomenon.
If this trajectory continues without correction, the future that emerges is a narrower and more automated cognitive ecosystem. In which AI acts as the primary instance of thought and not as a tool to expand it. This problem should lead us to ask ourselves whether we want an AI that thinks for us or one that forces us to think better.
If we seek quick answers, that’s what it will give us. If we avoid effort, it will reinforce that avoidance. But if we use it as a demanding intellectual partner, one that amplifies our skills, challenges us, and complements us, then we can expand our capabilities to levels we can barely imagine today. Only in this way can we harness its potential without accumulating the cognitive debt that future generations would otherwise end up paying. The real challenge is not adopting AI; the challenge is continuing to think.
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