Is AI making us stupid?

Science Weekly

The Guardian

Science

4.2 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Artificial intelligence can execute tasks in seconds that once took humans hours, if not days to complete. While this may be great for productivity, some researchers are concerned that our increasing use of AI could be impacting our ability to tackle difficult problems and think critically. To find out where the science stands, and how worried we should be about the potential of AI to change how we think, Ian Sample hears from Madeleine Finlay and Sam Gilbert, professor of neuroscience at University College London. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Guardian.
0:13.1	AI can write essays.
0:15.6	Come up with recipes from the leftovers in your fridge.
0:19.5	Plan a trip.
0:21.3	Show you how to fix your bicycle.
0:23.8	Craft a response to that email from your boss,
0:26.7	and all it requires from us is a short prompt,
0:31.4	a difficult task sorted in a matter of seconds.
0:36.9	It's great for productivity,
0:39.6	but if we're not actually doing any of the hard thinking ourselves
0:43.7	and letting AI do it all instead,
0:46.8	what does that mean for us and our brains?
0:53.0	It's a question that's begun to concern researchers.
0:56.6	Will we still be able to think creatively, critically and quickly in the age of AI?
1:03.1	Or, as we depend on our devices more and more, will we become, in the words of one education expert, a stupidogenic society.
1:15.1	So today on the podcast, I'm chatting to my co-host, Madeline, about how technology might be
1:21.0	impacting our brain power and if it really could make humans less intelligent.
1:28.7	I'm the Guardian science editor, Ian Sampbell, and this is Science Weekly.
1:39.1	Maddie, we're chatting today because you've been looking into a very intriguing question. Is AI making us stupid?
1:47.6	Why exactly did you want to ask this? Well, you know, there were a lot of concerns about AI at the
1:53.5	moment. And one of the things that people seem really worried about is this idea that AI is going to deskill us. I was reading
2:03.1	a Guardian article about this and it was titled Are We Living in a Golden Age of Stupidity? And it sort of
	...

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