Annotations
According to surveys, 78 per cent of organisations, 81 per cent of researchers, 86 per cent of students, and nearly two-thirds of physicians now use AI in some way.
Early findings suggest that excessive and thoughtless engagement with chatbots can lead to deleterious cognitive effects. For example, research led by the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania showed that, while a chatbot improved students’ mathematics performance, the benefit was like a crutch – when the AI was taken away, the students’ performance was worse than a control group.
Before we get into specific ways to use AI, I recommend you take a step back and ask yourself: what matters for my personal and professional development in the next three, to five, to 10 years? Write down your key objectives, describe your ideal self, or simply the skills you want to cultivate.
If you follow only one rule, make it this: for any task where thinking matters, always try on your own first, and only then use chatbots.
When you struggle first, you build your own understanding of the problem and how to approach it. Using a chatbot afterward allows you to refine and expand that understanding. In contrast, relying on ready-made solutions leaves the AI’s ideas disconnected from your thinking, making them harder to apply later.