News in Easy English: AI use may make thinking weaker, but students are using it anyway

Tokyo - Artificial intelligence, or AI, can help with many tasks like math, writing, and translating languages. However, some experts warn that using AI too much may make people rely less on their own thinking skills. Shunya Kamei is a teacher in Osaka who teaches junior high and high school students. One day, a junior high school boy gave him an English homework assignment that impressed Kamei.

Kamei wondered if the student wrote the homework himself, as the boy was not strong in English. The student confessed that he had used a program called ChatGPT for help. Kamei notices that many children now use generative AI, and most do not feel wrong for asking the computer for answers. Yet, Kamei believes adults should not completely ban AI use.

He suggests that some students use AI effectively and learn better with its help. Adults should closely watch children and guide them to use AI properly. A survey of 535 university students in 2025 found that about 36% of them submitted work created by AI without making any changes. Sachiko Kimura, who conducted the survey at Dokkyo University, says schools need assignments that cannot be completed just by copying from AI.

Daisuke Yamazaki teaches programming at Digital Hollywood University Graduate School. He advises students not to use AI at the beginning of the first month of class. Yamazaki warns that some students accept computer code they do not completely understand as if they had learned programming. He believes students should start by thinking hard on their own before depending on AI.

Some recent studies also suggest that using AI may weaken thinking skills. A study from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Oxford involved 1,000 adults who took online math and reading tests. At first, those who could use AI performed better. However, once the AI tool was removed, their scores dropped below those of the group that never used AI.

They also gave up more easily when faced with difficult questions. Another study at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published in June 2025 showed that using generative AI to write short essays resulted in lower brain activity than when not using AI. Many participants could not remember what they had written as well. The study also found that people who wrote first without AI did better later when using AI.

However, those who used AI first did not completely regain their brain activity, motivation, or concentration. Experts agree that AI can be useful, but it should assist people in thinking, not take over all the thinking for them.