Offloading work tasks to AI comes with a cost – to our brains

JDawnInk/Getty Imagine your team has been tasked to deliver a high-stakes policy paper under intense time pressure.

Everyone turns to generative artificial intelligence (AI) and within minutes, it delivers a full draft complete with structured arguments and authoritative-looking citations.

The team then transfers the AI-generated text into the corporate template, polishes the narrative flow and structure, and gives it one final check before sending it up the chain.

Leadership takes a glimpse of the polished-looking draft, and – assuming the underlying research has already been verified – signs off and publishes.

This scenario is not hypothetical.

South Africa’s Draft National AI Policy had to be withdrawn earlier this year after reviewers found a number of the citations pointed to journal articles and authors that didn’t exist.

Ironically, the mistakes were introduced by AI.

Similarly, last year, consultancy firm Deloitte provided a partial refund to the Australian government after admitting that generative AI had been used to help produce a commissioned document which contained fabricated citations and referenced quotes from sources that simply did not exist.

The report cost Australian taxpayers A$440,000.

But the cost of letting AI do our work and thinking also comes at a cost to our brain.

Value of thought As seen in the examples above, work tasks produced by AI often look polished on the surface but carry significant underlying flaws.

This is a byproduct of how the modern workplace has conditioned us to prioritise the final deliverable – the report, the presentation, the assignment – over the actual process.

However, this strictly outcome-driven approach rarely rewards the process by which results are obtained.

When we skip the process, we lose the ability to fully grasp what the output actually means.