Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in — and they’re not good

Physicians’ own ability to spot pre-cancerous growths during colonoscopies declined after they had grown accustomed to using an artificial-intelligence tool to help with the task. Credit: Gabrielle Voinot/Look at Sciences/Science Photo Library As more professionals begin to rely on artificial-intelligence tools in their work, could their hard-earned skills atrophy? That possibility is a growing concern for medical specialists, computer scientists and other workers. Seventy percent of nurses and 77% of physicians, for example, are worried about losing their skills because of over-reliance on AI systems , according to a survey of US health-care workers published earlier this month 1 . Their fear might be justified. Evidence suggests that AI-driven ‘deskilling’ is starting to happen in medicine, computer science and other fields. Researchers are now discussing how to preserve important human expertise in the age of AI. “Just being aware that this phenomenon exists hopefully provokes some self-reflection about which skills people want to maintain and which they’re willing to outsource” to AI tools, says Kevin Crowston, an information scientist at Syracuse University in New York. Spoiled by AI? A study 2 of physicians in Poland who specialize in endoscopy — the use of flexible probes to examine the inside of the human body — shows how quickly AI tools can erode human abilities. …