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It’s artificial intelligence’s (AI)’s world and we’re just living in it. From generative AI models like DALL-E, Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT to self-driving cars and seamless automation, AI is rapidly reshaping how we live, work and think.
While AI has unlocked exciting possibilities, it’s important we continue to question this technology, unpacking its potential dangers and how it might affect us.For instance, whether AI might be capable of critical thinking, or whether it has the potential to impact how humans think.
We’ve tapped into Deakin University’s Dilal Saundage, a data analytics expert, to answer these questions and more.
Before diving into AI and critical thinking, let’s focus on humans and critical thinking. Critical thinking is defined as ‘the ability to make informed decisions by evaluating several different sources of information objectively.’
There are a few things required to get there, according to Saundage. ‘To do that, we need to evaluate the source, identify biases, examine assumptions, and assess the logic and validity of the argument,’ Saundage says.
So why is critical thinking important? Well, it can help us navigate the news and social media and weed out misinformation, assist in making the right decisions in our jobs,or help students learn – and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Within the last few years, AI technology has already reached sci-fi levels of sophistication. In some respects, AI can think like a human – or, at least, it can
deliver results that feel intelligent.
‘AI doesn’t think like us,’ Saundage says. ‘It lacks consciousness, emotions, or self-awareness. However, it can process information, learn from data, and make decisions that mimic human thinking.’
AI does this through ‘training’. For example, a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT can learn how to respond to a query by analysing huge quantities of text data and replying with sentence structure, grammar, words and content based on patterns and probabilities.
The responses can read like AI thinking as a human does (with the possible exception of the telltale em dash), but has the technology advanced to the point where AI can think critically? For now, at least, it doesn’t seem like it.
‘LLMs do not genuinely reflect on their own reasoning or beliefs, have their own goals and values, or learn from experience and adapt their thinking over time,’ says Saundage. ‘In other words, they lack self-awareness or judgment, which are essential for true critical thinking.’
We’ve explored whether AI can think critically (to recap: it can’t) – but what about how AI might impact critical thinking skills for the rest of us? Is this technological advance helping our critical thinking faculties, or is it hindering them? As Saundage shows us, AI and critical thinking is an area of study attracting some interesting research at the moment.
‘A recent study found a strong negative link between frequent AI tool usage and the critical thinking skills of a group of Swiss business students,’ Saundage says. ‘Likewise, a study by Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University stated this: “Moreover, while Gen AI can boost worker efficiency, it can also hinder critical engagement with work and potentially cause long-term overreliance on the tool and reduced skill for independent problem solving.”’
These studies aren’t saying that generative AI use is reducing our ability to think critically. Rather, Saundage says that where people lack confidence in their own ability to think critically, they’re more likely to blindly trust the results given when querying AI, and that those who over-rely on AI tend to show lower levels of critical thinking.
‘I just want to emphasise the two key words “confidence” and “over-rely”,’ says Saundage. ‘I guess as educators we have an important job to show the way or rather show a better way!’
There are more areas impacted by AI than critical thinking. If you’ve been keeping up with the music press lately, you might have seen a bit of bluster about a band called the Velvet Sundown – an entirely AI-generated group, from its music to its imagery. It’s just the latest addition to an ongoing debate about creative legitimacy, ownership and how AI might impact human creativity.
Some are worried that AI has the potential to kill human creativity but, from Saundage’s point of view, prompt engineering through AI has been a creative helper.
‘This is one area where AI has been outstanding – that is, enabling human creativity,’ Saundage says. ‘Not only has AI pushed already creative individuals to new heights, but it has also allowed many others to sharpen their creative skills, which they wouldn’t have had the chance to do otherwise.’
There are concerns, though – particularly around issues like intellectual property and copyright law. The discussion is ongoing and very much unresolved but there are plenty of questions cropping up, like whether AI art trained on copyrighted IP is legal (Arts Law says that, in Australia, it’s not clear) and who owns the rights to art made with AI.
The debate around AI is still in its infancy. For Saundage, the topic of discussion is now turning to issues like how AI might affect critical thinking in the future, and related issues like how ChatGPT might be used in education.
‘We are now examining the implications of our cognitive offloading or delegating cognitive tasks to AI,’ Saundage says. ‘Researchers around the globe are busy exploring reasons why we turn to AI. Is it because we lack confidence in our critical thinking skills or because we don’t have the subject matter expertise?’
And, while we debate the merits of AI in critical thinking, creative tasks and beyond, Saundage says that the best thing to do is keep an open mind about the uses and potential of AI in the future of humanity.
‘I don’t want to sound like a doomsday prophet; the way forward is to use GenAI to boost our thinking, not replace it,’ Saundage says. ‘Stay curious, ask questions often, and keep your mind in the driver’s seat.’
