Managing the rapid pace of AI development in daily life. - Psychology Today

Four years ago, if you had told me that I would be adding language to my syllabus regarding students’ use of AI, I would not have believed you. At the time, I probably did not fully understand the direction AI was going in nor how it was rapidly starting to revolutionize how students learn and how I teach psychology courses.

I recently created an online asynchronous course and I received substantial feedback on how to “AI-proof assignments” in light of the crafty ways some students may use AI to bypass the intellectual rigor of course assignments. In that course, instead of students simply writing and submitting a paper (which is vulnerable to uses of AI), they must complete the paper in several different parts, requiring them to demonstrate their learning process. Ensuring that students are appropriately challenged in the era of generative AI has become my second full-time job.

As a psychology professor and licensed psychologist, what’s even more concerning is the risk of “cognitive stunting.” When young people, who are still learning how to master certain skills (e.g., summarizing text), decide to “outsource” these skills to AI, they are “shortcutting the process of developing those skills in the first place,” explains Rebecca Winthrop in a piece published by the Brookings Institute. The concerns are even greater for children and adolescents. They simply do not possess the cognitive reserve to offload these cognitive tasks, so the skill never gets developed.

Now, we’re facing an uncanny set of events with the proliferation of generative AI in all facets of life, which is being met with a mixture of pushback, acceptance, skepticism, and wonder. New York City Mayor Mamdani announced a one-year ban on generative AI in all New York City public schools. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) banned generative AI as well.

On the other hand, Alpha School, an AI-driven, teacher free school, launched its newest location in Chicago, Illinois in September 2026. A few months ago, a rural, upstate New York school paused the deployment of a human-like AI powered robot, following backlash. Where I work, at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), undergraduates can pursue a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence, which prepares students to design AI systems responsibly based on real world data.

The sudden ubiquity of AI is fascinating, unexpected, and perhaps disconcerting, particularly when we remind ourselves that OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022. That means that generative AI has only been available for public use for less than 5 years. This rate of accelerated development seems implausible yet so many of us are being inundated with notifications about companies’ adoption of AI tools. Gmail has Gemini as a built-in AI email assistant; Meta recently released Muse, a personal AI assistant; Amazon has Alexa to help with online shopping; and Bank of America has Erica, a virtual financial assistant.

The emergence of new technology is fun, exciting, but sometimes it provokes resistance. For example, books have been around for thousands of years with clay tablets and papyrus rolls being cited as the earliest known books since the third millennium BC. Socrates, the Ancient Greek Philosopher, decried the use of books arguing that it diluted human intelligence, by relying on the written word instead of memory. Furthermore, a book couldn’t challenge a reader the way a skilled instructor could when teaching students.

Consider even more recent technology such as the calculator. In the 1970s, the first handheld calculator was introduced to the public and was immediately popular. Resistance and concern followed thereafter. In 1986, teachers protested along the streets of a Washington D.C. convention center where the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) had convened a meeting. They protested the NCTM’s new policy that calculators be integrated into K-12 education. They carried signs passionately saying, “The Button's Nothin' ‘til the Brain's Trained.” Teachers feared that calculators would interfere with natural human intelligence and argued that pervasive use of the calculator would prevent students from acquiring the important skills needed to solve fundamental math operations.

In light of these mixed directions, where do we go from here? On one hand, generative AI can impact necessary, real-world experiences that make us human such as:

- Making mistakes

- Being creative

- Taking risks

- Pursuing social and romantic relationships

- Experiencing hardships

This can lead people to being:

- Less social

- Less confident

- Less emotionally regulated

There are probably a handful more reasons why generative AI can be harmful to older and developing minds alike. However, the unstoppable, lightning speed development of generative AI places us in a quandary when trying to determine the most proactive, reasonable way to deal with it.

Given that generative AI appears to be here to stay, understanding how to use this tool responsibly seems, in my view, to be the best way to inoculate ourselves against its potentially damaging effects. Some studies have suggests that when AI is used in specific, targeted ways among teachers, it may actually promote problem solving and critical thinking in students. Use of generative AI can, in some cases, save time, cut costs, or increase productivity, amongst other things. With that said, it will be helpful to prepare people on how to use AI responsibly.

- Age minimums. For example, users must often be at least 13 years old and have parental consent before creating an account to use certain generative AI tools (although an important caveat here is that many can still be used without creating an account).

- Establishing parameters for use. AI has been shown to be helpful in explaining complex, technical tasks. So, in the context of parents helping their children with homework, AI could provide step by step guidance on how to solve linear equations or geometry proofs, for example. This sort of guidance could serve as a template for other math problems.

- Transparency in AI use. Disclosing use of AI is responsible. The editor of Winthrop’s Brooking’s commentary disclosed use of AI for light copyediting and search for sources. Whenever possible, this sort of disclosure should become more mainstream.

As our understanding of generative AI continues to grow, we should continue to be mindful of its impact on how we complete mundane and complex tasks. Rather than barring its use, I believe that figuring out how to use it responsibly should be what guides us through these uncharted waters.