AI Dependency Threatens Workers’ Skills, Mirroring Concerns in Education, Experts Say

The use of generative AI is resulting in skills decay in workers, as they increasingly depend on the likes of ChatGPT in the name of efficiency.

An employee types on a computer keyboard at the headquarters of Internet security giant Kaspersky in Moscow, Russia, on Oct. 17, 2016. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images

Some education specialists have been warning about the potentially negative impact of embedding artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom, in particular, how it could dehumanize the learning experience and contribute to children’s digital overload.

They’ve also raised concerns that AI, specifically generative AI (GenAI), can impede children’s critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

The damage done by AI to learning is not limited to students in classrooms, however, according to some experts and a growing body of evidence.

In the workplace, adults—as they increasingly depend on the likes of ChatGPT in the name of efficiency—are finding that the use of GenAI is resulting in skills decay.

“The general problem of human atrophy is just as relevant in the workplace as it is in schools,” AI expert and author Joe Allen told The Epoch Times.

“The purpose of AI is supposed to be to expand the possibilities of what a worker or a student can do. It’s supposed to make their tasks more efficient. It’s supposed to enable them to marshal more resources to accomplish the task,” he said.

“But it seems like the kind of common-sense predictions as to what would happen are coming to pass.”

The particular problem that GenAI usage can pose is that it can lead to “cognitive offloading”—where a person uses a tool to reduce mental effort—to the extent that it becomes undesirable and results in the bypassing of essential processes for building long-term memory, which underpins learning.

An April 2025 study by Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University on AI use and the impact on critical thinking found that 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.”

Allen, who authored “Dark Aeon: Transhumanism and the War Against Humanity,” said studies that come to such conclusions “confirm what any reasonable person would assume: if a person isn’t actively thinking about something, then they’re going to have atrophied neurological activity.”

A recent paper by the British think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF), written by senior fellow Tom Richmond, examined the emerging research into how the use of GenAI can lead to cognitive offloading.

Richmond, an education policy analyst, points out that cognitive offloading is not necessarily a bad thing, or even tech-related, giving the example of writing down a telephone number instead of trying to memorize it as a form of offloading that alleviates cognitive demand.

But “given that digital devices have accelerated opportunities for cognitive offloading, concerns over the resulting impact on knowledge acquisition have not gone unnoticed,” he wrote.

Richmond told The Epoch Times the research is showing that adult learners with the most knowledge and expertise “are the least likely to experience the detrimental effects of AI on their learning and memory formation,” and that many adults are better insulated from these effects than children.

“But they are by no means immune from the cognitive deficits caused by GenAI tools,” he said.

Nicholas Carr, author of “The Shallows” and “Superbloom,” wrote that three things can happen when a person automates a task that they would otherwise do: their skill in that activity grows, atrophies, or never develops.

Which of the three outcomes manifests depends on the person’s initial mastery of the skill, but Carr noted that if maintenance of that skill is dependent on repetition, “then automation can threaten the talent of even a master practitioner,” potentially leading to “skill fade.”

AI Generation in the Workplace

As the rising generation that has grown up in an AI-enhanced world transitions from a cohort of students to employees, shallow learning habits formed early because of AI usage could follow them and have consequences in the workforce.

Richmond said younger learners and those with the least confidence in their own skills can quickly become dependent on GenAI, which will become like a “crutch” without which they may be unable to complete tasks.

“This could easily result in them struggling to secure a good job because they have not acquired basic learning habits or the resilience needed to succeed in new roles and environments,” the education policy analyst said.

Some research has already shown a divide between the generations in terms of critical thinking.

Michael Gerlich, a professor at SBS Swiss Business School, wrote in his paper on the impact of AI tools that there was a “significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities, mediated by increased cognitive offloading.”

“Younger participants exhibited higher dependence on AI tools and lower critical thinking scores compared to older participants,” he wrote.

Demotivation

There are other concerns about AI usage in the workplace besides its impact on skills acquisition, namely the effect on motivation and the sense of connection to one’s work.

“It is denying young people—or any entry-level personnel—from doing those sorts of menial tasks that motivate a person to improve and gain status in any kind of field,” Allen said.

Richmond believes that the challenge facing employers is significant.

He said that on one hand, AI can help employees complete tasks more quickly, which, at a surface level, appears to boost productivity.

“On the other hand, the more that employees use AI, the greater risks they face in terms of their own learning and memory foundation and the higher the likelihood that they will become dependent on the technology, which could make them less effective and capable in the longer term,” he said.

Not all of the rising generation will have the same experience, however.

Allen said that many schools and colleges across the United States are going back to “old-school ways” of teaching, and then monitoring students closely “to make sure that they’re not offloading their minds to machines.”

He also highlighted that there are schools that enforce cell phone bans, saying these students will fare better than those who went to schools where there was uncontrolled access to phones, laptops, and AI.

“The problem of human atrophy, especially of the young—the up-and-coming generation—is going to be enormous, but it’s not going to be universal,” Allen said.