{
  "id": 15870513,
  "title": "6 ways to use AI to actually make you smarter",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/21/6-ways-to-use-ai-to-actually-make-you-smarter",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-10-21T09:11:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Fast Company",
    "slug": "fast-company",
    "url": "https://www.fastcompany.com/91626932/6-ways-to-use-ai-to-get-smarter"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to make us smarter, contrary to concerns that it might make us less intelligent. By using AI in creative ways, we can enhance our intellectual abilities and knowledge. Here are six ways to leverage AI for cognitive improvement.\n\nFirstly, test yourself using AI. AI systems excel at generating customized quizzes and tests on specific subjects, which can serve as personalized tutors. Adjust the difficulty level of these tests to continually challenge yourself and ensure continuous learning. If you encounter a difficult concept, request AI-generated questions that illustrate it. Keep going until you feel confident and knowledgeable.\n\nSecondly, utilize AI to discover the right experts. Tools like Claude and ChatGPT can effectively identify relevant information based on LLM-based understanding, surpassing traditional search engines like Google. Use these AI systems to locate experts in specific fields, such as professors who have published papers on particular topics. To ensure credibility, ask the AI to provide direct links to the experts' published work or credentials, allowing you to verify their expertise.\n\nThirdly, workshop your ideas with AI. Instead of relying solely on AI to write for you, which can result in a robotic tone and inaccurate verbiage, use AI to brainstorm and organize your thoughts. Ask the AI to propose various organizational structures for your work, along with the advantages and disadvantages of each approach. Once you have a draft, have the AI identify potential criticisms to help you refine your ideas before presenting them to human reviewers.\n\nFourthly, learn to ask better questions. Journalists often review their interviews and ask, \"What should I have asked that I didn't?\" AI can help you improve this process. Before meeting with professionals such as hiring managers, potential clients, or professors, ask the AI to suggest additional questions to ask. By considering a broader range of questions, you can elicit more insightful responses, which will make you appear more knowledgeable and intelligent.\n\nLastly, stay up-to-date with AI-powered information curation. Although you don't need to read every AI-generated news feed daily, use AI to track specific topics and sectors of interest. Request direct links to original sources to ensure you're accessing reliable information. Whether you're following developments in a niche industry relevant to your work or tracking global events, AI can help you stay informed and knowledgeable without consuming excessive time and effort.",
  "summary": "There’s a reasonable amount of anxiety that artificial intelligence might be making us all, well, a little less smart than we were before. AI, the worry goes, might become a crutch for critical thinking. When a chatbot can write an email, weigh an investing decision, or explain a complicated subject in seconds, we have fewer reasons to work through those tasks ourselves. And the less we exercise…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}