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Artificial intelligence has rapidly embedded itself in daily life. At home, large language models are used to plan holidays, draft greetings card sentiments and diagnose ailments. At work, they are writing emails and conducting analysis. In schools and universities students are using chatbots to research and write essays. There is now reportedly around 700mn active weekly users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT globally. AI hype got another boost this week as blockbuster earnings reports from Microsoft and Meta drove the companies to record valuations and included further hefty commitments to invest in the technology. Google also began rolling out “AI mode” on its search platform in the UK.
人工智能正迅速融入人们的日常生活。在家中，大型语言模型被用于规划假期、撰写贺卡和诊断疾病；在工作中，它们用来撰写电子邮件和进行分析；在学校和大学，学生们用聊天机器人来研究和撰写论文。据报道，目前全球每周约有7亿活跃用户在使用OpenAI的ChatGPT。本周，由于微软和Meta发布亮眼财报并继续大举投资人工智能技术，AI热潮再次升温，两家公司也创下了市值新高。与此同时，谷歌也开始在英国的搜索平台上线“AI模式”。
The potential benefits of widespread AI use are enormous. By speeding up routine tasks, it can free up leisure time or allow busy people to dedicate time to more involved activities. The technology’s ability to process vast amounts of data also means it can accelerate research and development processes, and expand human knowledge. It has made significant progress in brain mapping and mathematical reasoning.
广泛使用人工智能的潜在好处是巨大的。通过加快日常任务的完成速度，AI可以释放出更多的闲暇时间，或者让忙碌的人有精力投入到更复杂的事务中。该技术处理海量数据的能力，也意味着它能够加速研发流程，拓展人类知识边界。在脑图谱绘制和数学推理方面，它已取得显著进展。
However, the explosion of instant, easy access, AI-driven answers has its potential downsides, too. A particular concern is “cognitive offloading”. This is the idea that frequently outsourcing mental tasks to smart technology can cause our memory and problem-solving skills to atrophy. One example is the “Google effect”: research has already found that individuals can end up depending on search engines as a source of knowledge rather than remembering details for themselves. The risk with powerful AI chatbots, when overused, is that having the bulk of our writing, analysis and creative tasks done for us may mean we engage in less reasoning over time.
然而，这种快速、便捷、由AI驱动的答案爆炸式增长，也可能带来负面影响。其中一个特别令人担忧的是“认知卸载”现象。所谓认知卸载，是指人们频繁地将思维任务外包给智能技术，可能导致记忆力和问题解决能力的退化。例如，“谷歌效应”：已有研究发现，人们可能会依赖搜索引擎获取知识，而不是主动记忆信息。对于功能强大的AI聊天机器人而言，如果被过度使用，我们将写作、分析和创造性任务大量交给它们完成，长此以往，或许会让我们逐渐减少独立思考的频率。
The nascent studies into AI and human cognition are not without their flaws. But some do echo the concerns. Research published by MIT’s Media Lab in June, which divided 54 participants into groups, found that those who used large language models to write essays “consistently underperformed” against those who did not “at neural, linguistic and behavioural levels”. Over several months these users also got lazier, often resorting to lifting wads of AI text, verbatim. Another academic study published in January, drawing on interviews with 666 participants, found “a significant negative correlation between frequent AI tool usage and critical thinking abilities”.
虽然当前关于AI对人类认知影响的研究尚处于初期阶段，且存在不少缺陷，但已有一些研究印证了这些担忧。麻省理工学院媒体实验室6月发表的一项研究将54名参与者分组，结果发现，使用大型语言模型撰写论文的群体在“神经反应、语言表现和行为层面”持续不如未使用者。几个月后，这些人还变得更为懒惰，经常直接复制大段AI生成文本。另一项于今年1月发表的学术研究，在对666名参与者进行访谈后发现，“频繁使用AI工具与批判性思维能力之间存在显著负相关”。
Further research is needed to help everyone better understand the effects of AI. But it is still worth heeding the warning signs. After all, the harms from otherwise positive technological advances — such as the internet and social media — have often revealed themselves over time. And given our proclivity to simple answers and solutions (also known as “cognitive miserliness”) a few guardrails could be put in place to optimise AI use.
人们仍需更多研究来全面了解AI的影响，但现在就对这些预警信号保持警觉，依然是明智之举。毕竟，从互联网到社交媒体，一些原本被视为正面进步的技术，其潜在危害往往是随着时间推移才逐渐显现的。鉴于人类普遍倾向于追求简单直接的答案和解决方案（即“认知吝啬”），我们或可设置一些引导机制，优化AI的使用方式。
One priority must be to protect critical thinking in education. The widespread access to fast information raises the premium on our ability to question and evaluate AI outputs; teaching should enhance these skills. Second, AI coaches suggest users ought to be encouraged to see the technology as an assistant, not an omniscient bot. It is, after all, not free from “hallucinations”, misinformation or bias. Such awareness is important, particularly as AI can be used for things such as political advice and therapy. Finally, developers could in certain cases nudge AI to return answers with questions and options, to encourage users to do more deliberative thinking.
首要任务应是保护教育中的批判性思维。在信息获取愈发便捷的时代，我们质疑和评估AI输出的能力将愈加重要，教育教学应着重培养这些技能。其次，AI指导者建议，用户应被鼓励将AI视为助手，而非全知的“万能机器人”——毕竟它并不具备避免“幻觉”、错误信息或偏见的能力。这种认知尤其重要，因为AI还可能被用于提供政治建议或心理咨询。最后，在某些场景下，开发者可引导AI在回答问题时附带反问或选项，鼓励用户进行更深入的思考与判断。
AI is at its most powerful when it is a collaborator, not a crutch. To avoid over-dependence, it seems best to be a discerning user of chatbots, rather than a passive consumer.
当它是合作者而不是拐杖时，AI是最强大的。为了避免过度依赖性，我们似乎更应成为有判断力的聊天机器人用户，而不是被动的信息消费者。