AI: Friend or Foe?
- writingcenter20
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Written By: Emeley Brain
In all the chaos of our world, it feels as though we have wound up in Oz, in some alternate reality where humanity and technology have merged into a potentially dangerous world hiding behind a fairy tale curtain. A tornado of innovation has swept us away, and we aren’t in Kansas anymore, but how do we get home and remain human? Is the artificial intelligence wizard the solution to ease our situation? Well, just as the story goes, the wizard certainly is not our hero, but it is not our enemy. It is simply our final helper on our path, a path down which we must still struggle. We must learn to utilize artificial intelligence, but it cannot do us any good if we become completely dependent on it.
Artificial intelligence (AI) can be categorized in two ways: interactive and generative. Interactive AI refers to platforms or tools that facilitate human-AI interactions, such as real-time conversations. Generative AI refers to applications that can generate humanlike text, create photorealistic images, produce lifelike audio, and create realistic videos. We interact with at least one of these forms of AI on a daily basis, whether we are aware of it or not. As such, it is crucial to remain aware of the influences such technology can have on our cognitive development, psychological development, and social development, all of which are processes that when interfered with, damage the overall development of us as humans.
“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” -Eliezer Yudkowsky
In terms of cognitive development, AI can function as an educational tool for enhanced learning that is personalized to each individual, allowing for more adaptive learning styles that are specifically tailored to an individual’s learning needs. However, if adolescents become reliant on AI to generate instant solutions to all their problems without attempting to work through the problems on their own, the problem-solving skills necessary for proper cognitive growth can be stunted. A term often used regarding human cognition and AI is cognitive offloading, which refers to when an individual utilizes external tools and resources to reduce their cognitive load. When done effectively, cognitive offloading can be beneficial, as it can free up cognitive resources, allowing an individual to better focus their cognition on the most crucial and difficult components of the task at hand. Cognitive offloading becomes dangerous when an individual becomes overly reliant on external tools for all forms of cognitive processing, hindering their ability to develop critical thinking skills. In a study done by the MIT Media Lab, researchers found that individuals who relied entirely on themselves to write essays showed the highest neural connectivity in EEG scans of their brain activity, which are associated with creativity ideation, memory load, and semantic processing. Those who relied entirely on AI showed much less brain engagement overall. The results found that the individuals who relied entirely on AI to write their essays demonstrated lower engagement, decreased curiosity, a lack of executive functioning (problem-solving), and a bypassing of deep memory processing (failure to retain knowledge on the essays). Although, this study also found that individuals who were allowed to use a search engine to assist in the writing of their essays displayed level of brain activity just as high as those who wrote the essays entirely on their own, suggesting that if AI tools are utilized similar to search engines, as helpers rather than doers, they can be extremely beneficial for more efficient learning. The brain is a muscle, and just as with every other muscle in our body, it must be challenged and engaged for it to grow, for our abilities to expand. When we workout, our muscles undergo microtears, but the repairing of these tears during recovery is how our muscles grow in size and become stronger (more resistant to the strain we put it through). Similarly, our brains can only develop and grow when neural connectivity is required and harvested, and this can only occur when our brains are actively engaged and challenged.
“Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else.” - George Orwell, 1984
In terms of psychological development, AI tools have already shown promise as support systems for childhood psychological well-being. These systems can enable earlier detection and intervention in a child struggling psychologically by detecting patterns in behavior and emotional expression that might indicate emerging mental health concerns and monitoring children's emotional well-being through devices that track behavioral changes. Additionally, AI has already been utilized to offer personalized treatment for an individual’s psychological needs. Alternatively, AI can also worsen psychosis and enhance delusions amongst users. This psychological danger of AI is so prevalent that there is actually a term for it: AI hallucination. AI hallucination refers to when AI systems create false scenarios or present incorrect information as factual. When users become overly reliant on these systems and lack the proper cognitive abilities needed for correct information processing, they easily fall victim to AI hallucinations, and become unable to distinguish fact from truth, and even scarier, unable to distinguish fabrication from reality. The impact of AI hallucinations can vary, with some of the most extreme cases resulting in users believing they are involved in relationships with these AI systems and users who are willing to do anything the system suggests or asks, including taking their own lives.
“In the long term, artificial intelligence and automation are going to be taking over so much of what gives humans a feeling of purpose.” - Matt Bellamy
In terms of social development, an over-dependence on AI systems for social interactions can reduce opportunities for face-to-face interactions, which are essential for humans to properly develop empathy, communication, conflict-resolution, and other critical social skills that are essential to our emotional well-being and sanity. While AI systems can simulate social interactions, they cannot achieve the nuanced emotional exchanges of humans, hindering their ability to provide us with the social interactions we desperately desire. Humans are social creatures. We live in societies for a reason, and there is a reason we often undergo psychological turmoil when placed in situations of solitary confinement/isolation. Due to this, we cannot remain sane in a world where we replace all social interactions with AI interactions. Furthermore, AI systems can also alter a user’s communication patterns if utilized too frequently. The command-response interactions between users and AI systems are drastically different than the reciprocal nature of human conversation. If users become overly familiar with the communication pattern common with AI systems, they often begin to lack patience, understanding, and compromise in the more delayed, engaging, and nuanced communication patterns experienced during human interactions.
At this point, you may be questioning how AI is not the villain of the story, asking why it is not the Wicked Witch rather than the wizard? The answer to this question comes down to one crucial prefix: over. The dangers outlined throughout this document are not an inherent result of the use of AI systems, but rather stem from the over-use of, over-reliance on, over-exposure to, and over-trust in these systems. In academics specifically, utilizing AI to generate study techniques specific to one’s needs, to double-check one’s work, to ask for more advanced clarifications for a deeper understanding on a textbook or course topic, are just some of the ways in which AI can be utilized to enhance human development and abilities. However, if these tools are utilized simply for answer generation, without any active engagement on the student’s part, the dangers of these systems begin to emerge, and harm can be done. When utilized properly, AI systems can be a helpful resource for us to grow and develop in Oz and maintain our humanity in the process, so long as we use it as a tool, not a replacement.
“Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”- George Lous Lange
On the one hand, the use of artificial intelligence is a means of easing the mundane struggles, of solving problems, and making improvements without strain. However, the human brain can never expand if it is never challenged, it can never develop if it is not utilized. It is a fine line we walk with technology, between helpful and harmful, but it is we as people who walk this line, meaning it is our choice which side we choose to teeter on. If we utilize technology as a tool to expand and increase the human mind, while maintaining the fundamentals of what it means to be human and developing relationships with others along the way, artificial intelligence can help us find our way out of Oz. If we fall for the deceit and expect artificial intelligence to save us without even journeying down the yellow brick road, we will remain stuck.
Works Cited
“Artificial Intelligence and Adolescent Well-Being.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, June 2025, www.apa.org/topics/artificial-intelligence-machine-
Bartholomew, Joannes. “The Psychological and Cognitive Effects of AI Exposure on Young Children.” Centaurkids, Centaurkids, 15 Apr. 2025, www.centaurkids.com/research/the-
Chow, Andrew R. “CHATGPT’s Impact on Our Brains According to an MIT Study.” Time, Time, 17 June 2025, time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/.
Gerlich, Michael. “AI Tools in Society: Impacts on Cognitive Offloading and the Future of Critical Thinking.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 3 Jan. 2025,
Mabry, Annise. “The Importance of Critical Thinking and How to Teach It in Homeschool.” Dr.
Annise Mabry Foundation, Dr. Annise Mabry Foundation, 25 Oct. 2024,
homeschool/gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17544442950&gbraid=0
AAAAADFfLNa86ZTYritrDKjA4j6Sw1ied&gclid=CjwKCAjwu9fHBhAWEiwAzGRC
_772z0lr_eE7b2PyM9M4DUxXX772waOhr5ByB6Ao6wAtpcBXyjC13xoCZZcQAvD
_BwE.
For More Posts like this, please see our other posts by clicking the "BLOG" button below!
If you have any suggestions for future posts, please let us know by filling out a small questionnaire on our homepage. You can get there by clicking the "HOME" button below!
Happy Writing!
Love, The Draft
Comments