Opinion: Is AI making us artificially intelligent, but unable to analyse

Artificial intelligence can be a useful assistant and a force multiplier, but people should not lose the ability to think problems through, writes Krishnan Menon, Distinguished Fellow at the Nanyang Centre for Marketing and Technology at NTU's Nanyang Business School.

In a commentary, Mr Menon said the debate is no longer about whether AI is useful. Instead, the more uncomfortable question is whether artificial intelligence is making people "artificially intelligent".

He said the concern is no longer a fringe one, with more workers now using generative AI at work. Microsoft's 2024 Work Trend Index, based on a survey of 31,000 workers across 31 countries, found that 75 per cent of knowledge workers globally use generative AI at work.

Singapore is also seeing widespread use of AI tools. Mr Menon cited the Infocomm Media Development Authority's Singapore Digital Economy Report, which found that three in four workers here report using AI tools regularly.

But the key issue is not just whether these tools are being used, he said. It is what people are doing with them.

He likened the current generative AI moment to the rise of autopilot systems in aviation. As automation took over more phases of flight, pilots continued to be trained rigorously, but they flew less and managed systems more. Over time, some struggled to take over manually when things went wrong, not because they lacked ability, but because they had not been practising enough.

Skill, it turns out, is not something you have. It is something you keep doing.

Read more here in The Straits Times.