George Kumar, Senior Director at AstraZeneca, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“The Hidden Cost of AI Assistance: Are We Trading Skills for Shortcuts? The AI Deskilling Problem No One Is Solving.
AI tools are making us better at tasks – but worse at the skills behind them. And early evidence suggests this is already happening in medicine and software engineering.
A study published in The Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology examined Polish endoscopists – all with at least 2,000 colonoscopies under their belt – who were given access to an AI system that flagged precancerous adenomas in real time. The tool was available only on some days. The result? Before AI was introduced, adenoma detection rates stood at 28.4%. After physicians grew accustomed to the tool, their unassisted detection rate fell to 22.4% – a meaningful drop in just three months.
Meanwhile, a randomized controlled trial by Anthropic researchers tested 52 software engineers on a coding task. Half used an AI assistant, half did not. The AI group performed significantly worse on a follow-up quiz – averaging 50% versus 67% – and struggled especially with diagnosing code errors. They could produce the output; they just hadn’t learned the underlying concepts.
The pattern has a name: AI-driven deskilling. And it’s not new – GPS eroded navigation skills, calculators changed how we handle arithmetic. But generative AI is different. It’s the first technology to automate cognitive tasks once considered uniquely human: reasoning, interpretation, diagnosis.
Researchers note there is currently no established solution. The concern is especially acute for early-career professionals who may never build the foundational skills that AI is now substituting.
The takeaway isn’t to avoid AI – it’s to use it with eyes open. Knowing which skills you’re willing to outsource and which ones you need to own may be one of the most important professional decisions of this decade.”
Title: Is AI ruining our skills? Early results are in – and they’re not good
Author: Mariana Lenharo
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