Cognitive debt
noun
The MIT brain-scanner finding that the thinking you skip doesn’t stay skipped. It compounds, like interest, payable later.
Also known as thinking debt
Cognitive debt is the thinking ability you fail to build when the machine repeatedly does the difficult mental work for you. The saved time feels immediate; the missing capacity turns up later. A person who asks AI to test a conclusion still brings a conclusion. A person who reaches for it before forming the question skips the part where judgement is made, and repeat that often enough and the skipped thinking compounds. The debt is not caused by using AI. It grows when use replaces the struggle through which you learn to frame, compare, doubt and decide. The interest gets paid the first time the machine is wrong and nobody at the desk has a reference point.
See also AI brain fry Myth of verification Botsitting