This preprint on arXiv from CMU, Oxford, MIT and UCLA adds to the growing list of harms that overuse of AI tools are implicated in.
I would suggest that folks who think using AI is great for mathematicians should think again. It seems as little as 10 minutes of use can be problematic. What else do we know that provides short-term gains at the expense of long-term loss?
Here, through a series of randomized controlled trials on human-AI interactions (N = 1,222), we provide causal evidence for two key consequences of AI assistance: reduced persistence and impairment of unassisted performance. Across a variety of tasks, including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension, we find that although AI assistance improves performance in the short-term, people perform significantly worse without AI and are more likely to give up. Notably, these effects emerge after only brief interactions with AI (approximately 10 minutes). These findings are particularly concerning because persistence is foundational to skill acquisition and is one of the strongest predictors of long-term learning.
From AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance, on arXiv
https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.04721#AI #GenAI #GenerativeAI #AgenticAI #AIAssistants #CognitiveImpairment #math #MathematicalReasoning #ReadingComprehension