AI Won't Make You Dumb—But Lazy AI Habits Will

Author

Charlene Li
June 16, 2025

There's a quote that says, "It's not AI that's going to replace us, it's somebody using AI that's going to replace us."

Let me modify that: AI won't replace critical thinkers. It's AI users who will replace those who don't think critically.

This distinction matters more than you might think. Because the biggest question I'm hearing from leaders everywhere is: "Are we going to get lazy with AI? Is it going to make us dumber?"

Here's my answer: AI won't make us dumb and lazy, but only if we're intentional about how we use it. As AI becomes more powerful and trustworthy, critical thinking becomes even more valuable. The most successful leaders won't be those who rely on AI for answers, but those who leverage it to deepen their questions and sharpen their strategic thinking.

The Critical Thinking Paradox

A fascinating study from Carnegie Mellon and Microsoft revealed something striking about how we interact with AI: the more we trust AI, the less likely we are to think critically about its output.

Think about the irony here. Just when AI tools are improving rapidly and gaining our trust, we're becoming less vigilant about evaluating their responses. At the exact moment when critical thinking and oversight is most crucial, we're letting our guard down.

Meanwhile, the study found that professionals with higher self-confidence in their expertise engaged more critically with AI content. In other words, the more you know, the better you are at questioning AI's output.

But here's the catch: While we need expertise to validate AI, AI is increasingly handling the entry-level work where people traditionally develop that expertise. We're in a strange place where the training ground for domain knowledge is being automated away.

How Critical Thinking Is Shifting

The nature of critical thinking itself is evolving in the AI era:

▶️ From information gathering to information verification. We used to spend time collecting data; now we need to focus on evaluating whether AI-generated information is accurate and reliable.

▶️ From task execution to task stewardship. Instead of doing the work ourselves, we're increasingly responsible for ensuring AI does the work correctly.

▶️ From solving problems to integrating solutions. Our role shifts to understanding how AI-generated responses fit into the broader context and application.

This is especially important as we move toward agentic AI—systems designed to operate with minimal human intervention. When agents are making decisions on our behalf, our oversight becomes even more critical.

Practical Ways to Stay Sharp

Here are specific techniques I've been using and teaching others to maintain critical thinking while working with AI:

1️⃣ Build domain expertise intentionally. Since AI is handling entry-level tasks, we need to invest deliberately in developing and maintaining expertise. This means continuous learning, staying current in your field, and literally staying ahead of what AI agents can do.

2️⃣ Shift from critic to strategic supervisor. Don't just evaluate AI's output—understand how you want it to work, monitor its reasoning process, and guide it like you would manage a team member.

3️⃣ Use AI as a devil's advocate. After AI gives you a response, ask it: "What are the risks with this approach?" "Give me a counterargument." "What would a critic say about these ideas?" Let AI challenge its own responses.

4️⃣ Track and learn from mistakes. I constantly tell AI, "That doesn't look right, did you make that up?" And it will often admit, "Yeah, I don't really know what I'm talking about." Log these mistakes, understand why they happened, and train the AI to avoid them.

5️⃣ Transform your prompting approach. Instead of using AI as an answer machine, make it your thought partner. End your prompts with: "Before you start working on this task, ask me any clarifying questions you may have." This simple addition shifts the interaction from command-and-response to collaborative conversation.

Designing Organizations for Critical Thinking

Individual practices aren't enough. Organizations need to systematically build critical thinking into their AI workflows:

✅ Design for human-in-the-loop and human-agent collaboration. Even with autonomous agents, create clear touchpoints for human oversight, training, and course correction.

✅ Create a culture of questioning. Hold regular "AI jam sessions" where teams share examples of when AI broke, what they learned, and how to prevent similar issues. Make it safe—even celebrated—to challenge AI's output.

✅ Recognize human judgment. Don't just reward productivity gains from AI. Celebrate instances where someone's critical thinking caught an error or improved a solution. This reinforces that questioning AI is part of everyone's job.

The Educator's Challenge

One of the most thoughtful questions from our discussion came from educator Ethne Schwarz: "How do we make sure students incorporate this type of thinking into their research?"

This touches on a fundamental shift happening in education. When knowledge becomes a commodity, wisdom, critical thinking, and judgment become paramount.

We need to teach students not just what to think, but how to think. Instead of testing for the right answer, we should evaluate the thinking process: How did you arrive at this conclusion? What questions did you ask along the way? How did your thinking evolve from your first draft to your final version?

We need to reward the improvement in thinking, not just the final output.

The Path Forward

Critical thinking in the AI era isn't about being suspicious of technology. It's about being intentional in how we collaborate with it.

The goal isn't to slow down or avoid AI; it's to use it in ways that make us better thinkers, not lazy ones. AI should amplify our expertise, help us ask better questions, and give us the cognitive space to focus on higher-level strategic thinking.

The organizations and individuals who thrive with AI won't be those who blindly trust it, but those who thoughtfully partner with it. They'll use AI to become more capable, more strategic, and more human in their decision-making.

Critical thinking isn't going away in the AI era. It's becoming our most important competitive advantage.

💭 Your Turn 

How are you maintaining and developing your critical thinking skills as you work with AI? What techniques have you found most effective for staying sharp while leveraging AI's capabilities?

What I Can’t Stop Talking About 

Stop collecting use cases. Start building momentum. That impressive spreadsheet of AI use cases isn't a strategy—it's just a list. And lists don't transform businesses. What you need instead is the AI Value Flywheel: operational efficiency that frees up resources, customer engagement that channels those resources into better experiences, and re-invention that sparks true innovation.

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