Dossier
epistemic atrophy
Coverage of epistemic atrophy in the Nexus archive.
- The real danger of AI isn't that it's wrong — it's that it could make us stop thinking for ourselves, a professor says
Lucy Gill-Simmen, an associate dean at Royal Holloway, University of London, warns that AI risks making people stop questioning information by providing answers without requiring critical thinking. She highlights the danger of 'cognitive surrender' and 'epistemic atrophy,' where users rely on AI-generated responses instead of verifying facts or constructing knowledge independently.