AI is Making People Lazy

While AI has improved businesses by cutting out menial tasks and advancing healthcare with new technology, it has also been doing something subtle that many people don’t realize: it’s making us lazy. 

Because of platforms like ChatGPT or Photomath, students have been becoming lazier and lazier when it comes to their homework. Students can use ChatGPT to write essays for them, solve their math or science homework problems, and even make fake pictures of anything they want. AI is removing the need for effort, but for what? To save time? Is it worth it?

People are now becoming reliant on AI to do everything for them, and when they realize AI isn’t perfect, they get upset. Instead of trying to figure out how to solve that calculus problem, they ask AI to do it for them. Students can argue that it’s like using a calculator, but AI will give you the entire problem fully written out, not just the final answer. This is the problem. People are getting tired of thinking. People are getting tired of having to figure something out on their own. A teacher even wrote a poem about it! (Look it up. His name is Joseph Fasano, and the poem is called “For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper”). Using AI to do something for you entirely is robbing you of what the brain needs and the process of building skill and resilience. Never using a muscle like a bicep will weaken it, and the same thing goes for the brain. 

It’s not just students who are becoming lazy; it’s adults, too! Many adults in the workplace use AI to write their resumes or their emails, and it takes away the human touch that AI can’t bring. Sure, it may be a lot quicker, but it gives a sense of minimal effort throughout the company, which will only become worse and worse. 

Now, AI can be helpful in some ways, if people use it with caution. Take inputting data, for instance. That doesn’t necessarily need to be done by a human because it can be tedious and humans can make mistakes, while AI, at least most of the time, wouldn’t in this situation. That is using AI for how it should be used: to improve efficiency. But when people stop struggling, then people stop learning —and that is a problem. 

This article isn’t about being anti-technology and going back to the 1900s with no cell phones or television. It’s about showing that people should know when to use AI, and when to do it themselves. AI can be an incredible tool that can be useful in so many ways, but only if it’s used responsibly. When people lean and rely on it too much, they risk losing the special things that make us human. Curiosity, effort, and growth —these are all things that AI can’t bring to the table. AI should be used to enhance our abilities, not erase them entirely. So yes, AI is making us lazy. If we’re not careful, it’ll only make us lazier.