Skills erosion | Is AI really making employees more stupid? And what can HR do?

Skills erosion…knowledge atrophy... the ‘great deskilling’… or plain old gettin' stupider.

Call it what you like, it's becoming harder to ignore the growing concern that extensive artificial intelligence usage could be doing long-term damage to human cognition, hindering our prized capabilities from creativity to critical thinking.

A recently published paper from the University of Bath added to a mounting pile of research supporting this view, warning HR and people managers to proceed with caution when pushing staff to use AI – or to be more specific, Large Language Models (LLMs) – to improve efficiency without eroding key skills.

“AI may support tasks in these areas by updating documents, policies and workflows, or assisting with compliance,” stated Professor Dirk Lindebaum, author of the study. “This seems an obvious and easy win for a manager.”