While the top minds in artificial intelligence are racing to make the technology think more like humans, researchers at Elon University have asked the opposite question: How will AI change the way humans think?
The answer comes with a grim warning: Many tech experts worry that AI will make people worse at skills core to being human, such as empathy and deep thinking.
“I fear — for the time being — that while there will be a growing minority benefitting ever more significantly with these tools, most people will continue to give up agency, creativity, decision-making and other vital skills to these still-primitive AIs,” futurist John Smart wrote in an essay submitted for the university’s nearly 300-page report, titled “The Future of Being Human,” which was provided exclusively to CNN ahead of its publication Wednesday
The concerns come amid an ongoing race to accelerate AI development and adoption that has attracted billions of dollars in investment, along with both skepticism and support from governments around the world. Tech giants are staking their businesses on the belief that AI will change how we do everything — working, communicating, searching for information — and companies like Google, Microsoft and Meta are racing to build “AI agents” that can perform tasks on a person’s behalf. But experts warn in the report that such advancements could make people too reliant on AI in the future.
Already, the proliferation of AI has raised big questions about how humans will adapt to this latest technology wave, including whether it could lead to job losses or generate dangerous misinformation. The Elon University report further calls into question promises from tech giants that the value of AI will be in automating rote, menial tasks so that humans can spend more time on complex, creative pursuits.
Wednesday’s report also follows research published this year by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University that suggested using generative AI tools could negatively impact critical thinking skills.
‘Fundamental, revolutionary change’
Elon University researchers surveyed 301 tech leaders, analysts and academics, including Vint Cerf, one of the “fathers of the internet” and now a Google vice president; Jonathan Grudin, University of Washington Information School professor and former longtime Microsoft researcher and project manager; former Aspen Institute executive vice president Charlie Firestone; and tech futurist and Futuremade CEO Tracey Follows. Nearly 200 of the respondents wrote full-length essay responses for the report.
More than 60% of the respondents said they expect AI will change human capabilities in a “deep and meaningful” or “fundamental, revolutionary” way over the next 10 years. Half said they expect AI will create changes to humanity for the better and the worse in equal measure, while 23% said the changes will be mostly for the worse. Just 16% said changes will be mostly for the better (the remainder said they didn’t know or expected little change overall).
The respondents also predicted that AI will cause “mostly negative” changes to 12 human traits by 2035, including social and emotional intelligence, capacity and willingness to think deeply, empathy, and application of moral judgment and mental well-being.
