We surveyed 319 knowledge workers who use GenAI tools (e.g.,
ChatGPT, Copilot) at work at least once per week, to model how
they enact critical thinking when using GenAI tools, and how GenAI
affects their perceived effort of thinking critically. Analysing 936
real-world GenAI tool use examples our participants shared, we
find that knowledge workers engage in critical thinking primarily
to ensure the quality of their work, e.g. by verifying outputs against
external sources. Moreover, while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill
for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s
ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort.
When using GenAI tools, the effort invested in critical thinking
shifts from information gathering to information verification; from
problem-solving to AI response integration; and from task execution to task stewardship. Knowledge workers face new challenges
in critical thinking as they incorporate GenAI into their knowledge
workflows. To that end, our work suggests that GenAI tools need
to be designed to support knowledge workers’ critical thinking by
addressing their awareness, motivation, and ability barriers.
I would not say “can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill
for independent problem-solving” equals to “literally making people dumber”. A sample size of 319 isn’t really representative anyways, and they mainly had a sample of a specific type of people. People switch from searching to verifying, which doesn’t sound too bad if done correctly. They associate critical thinking with verifying everything (“Higher confidence in GenAI’s
ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort”), not sure I agree on this.
This study is also only aimed at people working instead of regular use. I personally discovered so many things with GenAI, and know to always question what the model says when it comes to specific topics or questions, because they tend to hallucinate. You could also say internet made people dumber, but those who know how to use it will be smarter.
They had to write an essay in 20 minutes… obviously most people would just generate the whole thing and fix little problems here and there, but if you have to think less because you’re just fixing stuff instead on inventing… well yea, you use your brain less. Doesn’t make you dumb? It’s a bit like saying paying by card makes you dumber because you use less of your brain compared to paying in cash because you have to count how much you need to give, and how much you need to get back.
Yes, if you get helped by a tool or someone, it will be less intensive for your brain. Who would have thought?!
Are being used to push fascist ideologies into every aspect of the internet:
Everything can be used for that. If anything, I believe AI models are too restricted and tend not to argue on controversial subjects, which prevents you from learning anything. Censorship sucks
I do agree on this, but at this point everyone uses instagram, snapchat, discord and whatever to share their DMs which are probably being sniffed by the NSA and used by companies for profiling. People are never going to change.
And books destroyed everyone’s memory. People used to have fantastic memories.
They are a massive privacy risk:
No different than the rest of cloud tech. Run your AI local like your other self hosting.
Are being used to push fascist ideologies into every aspect of the internet:
Hitler used radio to push fascism into every home. It’s not the medium, it’s the message.
And they are a massive environmental disaster:
AI uses a GPU just like gaming uses a GPU. Building a new AI model uses the same energy that Rockstar spent developing GTA5. But it’s easier to point at a centralized data center polluting the environment than thousands of game developers spread across multiple offices creating even more pollution.
Stop being a corporate apologist
Run your own AI! Complaining about “corporate AI” is like complaining about corporate email. Host it yourself.
Do you really need to have a list of why people are sick of LLM and Ai slop?
With the number of times that refrain is regurgitated here ad nauseum, need is an odd way to put it.
Sick of it might fit sentiments better.
Done with this & not giving a shit is another.
If you ever take a flight for holiday, or even drive long distance and cry about AI being bad for the environment then you’re a hypocrite.
Same goes for if you eat beef, or having a really powerful gaming rig that you use a lot.
There are plenty of valid reasons AI is bad, but the argument for the environment seems weak, and most people using it are probably hypocrites. It’s barely a drop in the bucket compared to other things
Ahh so are you going to acknowledge the privacy invasion and brain rotting cause by Ai or are you just going to focus on dismissing the environmental concerns? Cause I linked more than just the environmental impacts.
But he isn’t speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
And your car or flight is a massive strain on the environment. I think you’re missing the point. There’s a way to use tools responsibly. We’ve taken the chains off and that’s obviously a problem but the AI hate here is irrational
The problem is the companies building the data centers; they would be just as happy to waste the water and resources mining crypto or hosting cloud gaming, if not for AI it would be something else.
In China they’re able to run DeepSeek without any water waste, because they cool the data centers with the ocean. DeepSeek also uses a fraction of the energy per query and is investing in solar and other renewables for energy.
AI is certainly an environmental issue, but it’s only the most recent head of the big tech hydra.
What? Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Tennessee (when fully expanded & operational) will need 2 GW of energy. That’s as much as some entire cities use in a year.
Semi non sequitur argument aside, your math seems to be off.
I double checked my quick phone calculations and using figures provided, Rockstar games with their office space energy use is roughly 18,000,000 (18 million) kWh, not 18,000,000,000 (18 billion).
And then you have a trained model that requires vast amounts of energy per request, right? It doesn’t stop at training.
You need obscene amounts GPU power to run the ‘better’ models within reasonable response times.
In comparison, I could game on my modest rig just fine, but I can’t run a 22B model locally in any useful capacity while programming.
Sure, you could argue gaming is a waste of energy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue that it shouldn’t have to cost boiling a shitload of eggs to ask AI how long a single one should. Or each time I start typing a line of code for that matter.
Hi. I’m in charge of an IT firm that is been contracted to carry out one of these data centers somewhat unwillingly in our city. We are currently in the groundbreaking phase but I am looking at papers and power requirements. You are absolutely wrong on the power requirements unless you mean per query on a light load on an easy plan, but these will be handling millions if not billions of queries per day. Keeping in mind that a single user query can also be dozens, hundreds, or thousands of separate queries… Generating a single image is dramatically more than you are stating.
Edit: I don’t think your statement addresses the amount of water it requires as well. There are serious concerns that our massive water reservoir and lake near where I live will not even be close to enough.
Edit 2: Also, we were told to spec for at least 10x growth within the next 5 years which, unless there are massive gains in efficiency, I don’t think there are any places on the planet capable of meeting the needs of, even if the models become substantially more efficient.
Do you really think those data centers wouldn’t have been built if AI didn’t exist? Do you really think those municipalities would have turned down the same amount of money if it was for something else but equally destructive?
What I’m hearing is you’re sick of municipal governance being in bed with big business. That you’re sick of big business being allowed to skirt environmental regulations.
But sure. Keep screaming at AI. I’m sure the inanimate machine will feel really bad about it.
Hypocrisy can be called the primitive nature of man who chooses what is easier because he is designed that way. Human is like a cancerous tumor for the planet.
Do you really need to have a list of why people are sick of LLM and Ai slop?
Ai is literally making people dumber:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/lee_2025_ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf
https://www.theregister.com/2025/06/18/is_ai_changing_our_brains/
They are a massive privacy risk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyH7zoP-JOg&t=3015s
https://theconversation.com/ai-tools-collect-and-store-data-about-you-from-all-your-devices-heres-how-to-be-aware-of-what-youre-revealing-251693
Are being used to push fascist ideologies into every aspect of the internet:
https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/
And they are a massive environmental disaster:
https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/02/25/ai-is-accelerating-the-loss-of-our-scarcest-natural-resource-water/
Stop being a corporate apologist and stop wreaking the environment with this shit technology.
You’re repeating debunked claims that are being pushed by tech giants to lobby for laws to monopolize AI control.
I’d rather read AI crap than this idiocy.
I would not say “can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving” equals to “literally making people dumber”. A sample size of 319 isn’t really representative anyways, and they mainly had a sample of a specific type of people. People switch from searching to verifying, which doesn’t sound too bad if done correctly. They associate critical thinking with verifying everything (“Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort”), not sure I agree on this.
This study is also only aimed at people working instead of regular use. I personally discovered so many things with GenAI, and know to always question what the model says when it comes to specific topics or questions, because they tend to hallucinate. You could also say internet made people dumber, but those who know how to use it will be smarter.
They had to write an essay in 20 minutes… obviously most people would just generate the whole thing and fix little problems here and there, but if you have to think less because you’re just fixing stuff instead on inventing… well yea, you use your brain less. Doesn’t make you dumb? It’s a bit like saying paying by card makes you dumber because you use less of your brain compared to paying in cash because you have to count how much you need to give, and how much you need to get back.
Yes, if you get helped by a tool or someone, it will be less intensive for your brain. Who would have thought?!
Everything can be used for that. If anything, I believe AI models are too restricted and tend not to argue on controversial subjects, which prevents you from learning anything. Censorship sucks
I do agree on this, but at this point everyone uses instagram, snapchat, discord and whatever to share their DMs which are probably being sniffed by the NSA and used by companies for profiling. People are never going to change.
https://andymasley.substack.com/p/a-cheat-sheet-for-conversations-about
Not clicking on a substack link. Fucking Nazi promoting shit website
And books destroyed everyone’s memory. People used to have fantastic memories.
No different than the rest of cloud tech. Run your AI local like your other self hosting.
Hitler used radio to push fascism into every home. It’s not the medium, it’s the message.
AI uses a GPU just like gaming uses a GPU. Building a new AI model uses the same energy that Rockstar spent developing GTA5. But it’s easier to point at a centralized data center polluting the environment than thousands of game developers spread across multiple offices creating even more pollution.
Run your own AI! Complaining about “corporate AI” is like complaining about corporate email. Host it yourself.
Lol I didn’t know that the anarchists over at lemmy.dbzer0.com are being corporate apologists. /sarcasm
With the number of times that refrain is regurgitated here ad nauseum, need is an odd way to put it. Sick of it might fit sentiments better. Done with this & not giving a shit is another.
This can be called not a technology, but a weapon for killing in my opinion.
If you ever take a flight for holiday, or even drive long distance and cry about AI being bad for the environment then you’re a hypocrite.
Same goes for if you eat beef, or having a really powerful gaming rig that you use a lot.
There are plenty of valid reasons AI is bad, but the argument for the environment seems weak, and most people using it are probably hypocrites. It’s barely a drop in the bucket compared to other things
Texas has just asked residents to take less showers while datacenters made specifically for LLM training continue operating.
This is more like feeling bad for not using a paper straw while local factory dumps all their oil change into the community river.
Maybe they should cut down on Beef first, it uses exponentially more water than AI and CO2
Ahh so are you going to acknowledge the privacy invasion and brain rotting cause by Ai or are you just going to focus on dismissing the environmental concerns? Cause I linked more than just the environmental impacts.
Uh dismissing that concern seems like valid point? Do people have to comprehensively discredit the whole list to reply?
This echo chamber isn’t ready for this logical discussion yet unfortunately lol
When someone disagrees with me - echo chamber.
When someone agrees with me - logical discussion.
You’re getting downvoted for speaking the truth to an echo chamber my guy.
But he isn’t speaking the truth. AI itself is a massive strain on the environment, without any true benefit. You are being fed hype and lies by con men. Data centers being built to supply AIs are using water and electricity at alarming rates, taking away the resources from actual people living nearby, and raising the cost of those utilities at the same time.
https://www.realtor.com/advice/finance/ai-data-centers-homeowner-electric-bills-link/
Rockstar games developing GTA5: 6k employees 20 kwatt hours per square foot https://esource.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/large-offices 150 square feet per employee https://unspot.com/blog/how-much-office-space-do-we-need-per-employee/#%3A~%3Atext=The+needed+workspace+may+vary+in+accordance
18,000,000,000 watt hours
vs
10,000,000,000 watt hours for ChatGPT training
https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/07/27/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use/
There are more 3d games developed each year than companies releasing new AI models.
The same can be said for taking flights to go on holiday.
Flying emits way exponentially more CO2 and supports the oil industry
This is valid to all data centers serving all websites. Your take is a criticism of unregulated capitalism, not AI.
Beef farming is a far far far more impactful discussion, yet here we are.
Ai takes far more power to serve a single request than a website does though.
And remember, AI requires those websites too, for training data.
So it’s not just more power hungry, it also has thw initial power consumption added on top
And your car or flight is a massive strain on the environment. I think you’re missing the point. There’s a way to use tools responsibly. We’ve taken the chains off and that’s obviously a problem but the AI hate here is irrational
The problem is the companies building the data centers; they would be just as happy to waste the water and resources mining crypto or hosting cloud gaming, if not for AI it would be something else.
In China they’re able to run DeepSeek without any water waste, because they cool the data centers with the ocean. DeepSeek also uses a fraction of the energy per query and is investing in solar and other renewables for energy.
AI is certainly an environmental issue, but it’s only the most recent head of the big tech hydra.
AI uses 1/1000 the power of a microwave.
Are you really sure you aren’t the one being fed lies by con men?
What? Elon Musk’s xAI data center in Tennessee (when fully expanded & operational) will need 2 GW of energy. That’s as much as some entire cities use in a year.
Rockstar games: 6k employees 20 kwatt hours per square foot https://esource.bizenergyadvisor.com/article/large-offices 150 square feet per employee https://unspot.com/blog/how-much-office-space-do-we-need-per-employee/#%3A~%3Atext=The+needed+workspace+may+vary+in+accordance
18,000,000,000 watt hours
vs
10,000,000,000 watt hours for ChatGPT training
https://www.washington.edu/news/2023/07/27/how-much-energy-does-chatgpt-use/
Yet there’s no hand wringing over the environmental destruction caused by 3d gaming.
Semi non sequitur argument aside, your math seems to be off.
I double checked my quick phone calculations and using figures provided, Rockstar games with their office space energy use is roughly 18,000,000 (18 million) kWh, not 18,000,000,000 (18 billion).
I put the final answer in Watt hours, not Kw hours to match. ChatGPT used 10B watt hours, not 10B Kwatt hours.
And then you have a trained model that requires vast amounts of energy per request, right? It doesn’t stop at training.
You need obscene amounts GPU power to run the ‘better’ models within reasonable response times.
In comparison, I could game on my modest rig just fine, but I can’t run a 22B model locally in any useful capacity while programming.
Sure, you could argue gaming is a waste of energy, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue that it shouldn’t have to cost boiling a shitload of eggs to ask AI how long a single one should. Or each time I start typing a line of code for that matter.
Hi. I’m in charge of an IT firm that is been contracted to carry out one of these data centers somewhat unwillingly in our city. We are currently in the groundbreaking phase but I am looking at papers and power requirements. You are absolutely wrong on the power requirements unless you mean per query on a light load on an easy plan, but these will be handling millions if not billions of queries per day. Keeping in mind that a single user query can also be dozens, hundreds, or thousands of separate queries… Generating a single image is dramatically more than you are stating.
Edit: I don’t think your statement addresses the amount of water it requires as well. There are serious concerns that our massive water reservoir and lake near where I live will not even be close to enough.
Edit 2: Also, we were told to spec for at least 10x growth within the next 5 years which, unless there are massive gains in efficiency, I don’t think there are any places on the planet capable of meeting the needs of, even if the models become substantially more efficient.
Do you really think those data centers wouldn’t have been built if AI didn’t exist? Do you really think those municipalities would have turned down the same amount of money if it was for something else but equally destructive?
What I’m hearing is you’re sick of municipal governance being in bed with big business. That you’re sick of big business being allowed to skirt environmental regulations.
But sure. Keep screaming at AI. I’m sure the inanimate machine will feel really bad about it.
Hypocrisy can be called the primitive nature of man who chooses what is easier because he is designed that way. Human is like a cancerous tumor for the planet.