The day when AI wasn't something to care about is long gone, it's either you move along with the ever changing pace of AI or you get left behind. Companies are already using AI to complement their workforce, CEOs are pumping lots of money into it, and individual employees are finding ways to upscale their skill just to keep up.
Everywhere you turn it's AI this and AI that, and though it does sound like a very important topic (which it is) there is something within the fuss that most people aren't looking at and that is what researchers called the exoskeleton effect, an idea that sounds so simple but can hold implications if you truly think about it.
The idea is that while AI may boost your current productivity level it also simultaneously degrades your existing skills as you rely on it more and more and herein lies an interesting challenge because it is not immediately apparent what is wrong.
Consider how the exoskeleton works. When you support your body with it, it's supposed to help and make you stronger, but the more you rely on it to complete a task, the less of your own muscle strength is used, thereby weakening over time and the same is precisely happening when you're letting the AI do the heavy thinking for you.
When you constantly allow your AI to write for you, allow AI to do all your tasks from start to finish, allow AI to generate new ideas for you without really having to brainstorm yourself you set yourself up for a phenomenon where you look more productive than ever externally but are slowly eroding your innate skill of critical thinking and creativity internally.
In the beginning you feel it as a win because it becomes quick and easy, but over time the price to be paid is a diminished skill of creativity, weak problem-solving abilities, and a generalized mental slothfulness that you might not even notice.
This is where many people are making the mistake because the conversation should not be about whether to use AI or not, because in reality there is no such option if you don't want to get left behind, but instead how to use AI in your daily workflow. There is a clear difference between using AI to supplement and support your thinking and letting it entirely replace your thinking and that is the determinant of skill-strengthening vs. Skill-weakening.
If you're constantly copying output from the AI without actively interpreting it, relying on the AI to carry out your task from start to finish, not making any personal contributions whatsoever, you are effectively outsourcing your thinking and that is precisely what the exoskeleton effect implies.
On the other hand if you use your AI as a prompt, challenge to your thinking or as a method of increasing workflow efficiency while still ensuring your creative contribution is at the core of your task, then you're using it to strengthen your skill, not weaken it.
The idea here is not necessarily to abandon AI, because as stated, this is a reality that's unavoidable in the present day, but rather to ensure you don't fall into the trap of letting it perform all your thinking functions and not have a skill that deteriorates over time. AI should be your training partner that sharpens your ability, not your cheat partner.
