MIT professor Eric So warns AI reliance erodes human cognitive skills

So notes that while interface designers could introduce productive friction—such as offering hints rather than direct answers or adding delays between responses—doing so often hurts user engagement ratings because users favor frictionless answers. He reported anecdotes from his research and presentations, including parents concerned about their children losing basic thinking skills and a medical student who defaulted to AI for diagnostic queries.

To prevent the loss of what So calls "signature thinking skills," he recommends that professionals identify their core cognitive competencies—such as diagnostic reasoning for doctors or rhetoric for lawyers—and avoid delegating the preliminary foundational tasks that build those abilities.