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Exploring The Argument: Has Technology Made Us Lazy

Categories: Dependence on Technology Effects of Computers Negative Impact of Technology

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Is Technology Making Our Brains Lazy?

Is technology making our brains lazy.

Posted July 21, 2011

This is the question that I was asked this week on BBC Radio. A recent study from researchers at Columbia University found that people are less likely to remember what they read online, but they could remember where they read it.

These questions were raised: Is this a good thing? Are computers making us lazy? Are we reluctant to think for ourselves when you can Google it?

My own research sheds light on these issues. In a study of several hundred young people, I looked at the way technology was impacted the way they remember and process information. We first identified whether people were active or passive users of digital technology by using a questionnaire that reflected their interactions with different internet forms, including Facebook and Twitter. The average number of hours a person spent consumed with these activities was the basis of their classification. The answer was clear: digital technology does change the way your brain works.

But it is not a bad thing. Active technology users were better at processing information in parallel. They could quickly adjust to a change in an information stream and picked up on what they needed to do. In contrast, passive technology users processed information successively and found it easier to focus on a single target at a time.

In a modern workplace where multitasking is standard, technology can give us an edge. The old school way of remembering facts and information is not necessary. With Google at our fingertips, we don't need to.

But what we do need to know is know how to use this information. And for that, we need Working Memory -your 'active' memory, the memory that you use to work with information. Working Memory is the skill needed to draw connections between information, to quickly shift from one task to another, and to calmly manage multiple streams of information.

So is technology making our brains lazy? No, I would suggest that it is making us more efficient . Instead of having to fill up our mental 'space' with lots of information, this space is now freed up so focus on other things. Like how to best succeed in the workplace with creative and efficient ideas using what you know!

Reference: Alloway TP & Alloway RG. Attentional control and engagement with digital technology, 2011, Nature Precedings.

Tracy Packiam Alloway, Ph.D., is a psychology professor at the University of North Florida. Formerly, she was director of the Center for Memory and Learning in the Lifespan, U.K.

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Intelligence Squared U.S.

Debate: is smart technology making us dumb.

Nicholas Carr, author of the acclaimed new book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, and his partner Andrew Keen, an Internet entrepreneur and author of The Internet Is Not the Answer. Samuel LaHoz/Intelligence Squared U.S. hide caption

Nicholas Carr, author of the acclaimed new book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us, and his partner Andrew Keen, an Internet entrepreneur and author of The Internet Is Not the Answer.

We've come a long way since 1975, when a newspaper in Midland, Texas, featured an advertisement about a personal pocket computer wizard that had the broad mathematical abilities of a slide rule: a Sharp calculator.

But, are we smarter now that technology has put a lot more than a slide rule into our pockets? Or are we so dependent on technology to do things for us that we are losing the ability to make our own magic, mentally, socially and politically?

Two teams faced off over these questions in the latest event from Intelligence Squared U.S., debating the motion: "Smart Technology is Making us Dumb." In these Oxford-style debates, the team that sways the most people to its side by the end is the winner.

Before the debate, 37 percent of the audience at the Kaufman Music Center in New York voted in favor of the motion, while 33 percent were opposed and 30 percent were undecided. After the event, 47 percent agreed with the motion and 43 percent disagreed, and 10 percent were undecided, making it the first tied debate.

THOSE DEBATING

Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist and vice president at Intel Corp., with teammate David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Samuel LaHoz/Intelligence Squared U.S. hide caption

Genevieve Bell, an anthropologist and vice president at Intel Corp., with teammate David Weinberger, senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

For The Motion

Nicholas Carr writes about technology and culture. He is the author of the acclaimed new book The Glass Cage: Automation and Us (2014), which examines the personal and social consequences of our ever growing dependency on computers. His previous work, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2011), was a Pulitzer Prize finalist and a New York Times bestseller. A former columnist for the Guardian , Carr writes the popular blog Rough Type, and has written for The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, Nature, MIT Technology Review and other periodicals. His essays, including "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" and "The Great Forgetting," have been collected in several anthologies. Previously, Carr was executive editor of the Harvard Business Review , as well as a member of Encyclopedia Britannica's editorial board of advisers and the steering board of the World Economic Forum's cloud computing project.

Andrew Keen is an Internet entrepreneur and the author of three books: The Internet Is Not the Answer (2015), Digital Vertigo: How Today's Social Revolution Is Dividing, Diminishing and Disorienting Us (2012), and Cult of the Amateur: How The Internet Is Killing Our Culture (2007). In 1995, he founded Audiocafe.com and built it into a popular first-generation Internet company. Keen is currently the executive director of the Silicon Valley salon FutureCast, a senior fellow at CALinnovates, the host of the "Keen On" Techonomy chat show and a columnist for CNN.

Against The Motion

Genevieve Bell is an Intel fellow and vice president of the Corporate Strategy Office at Intel Corp. She leads a team of social scientists, interaction designers, human factors engineers and computer scientists focused on people's needs and desires to help shape new Intel products and technologies. An accomplished anthropologist, researcher and author, she has been granted a number of patents for consumer electronics innovations. Bell is a highly regarded industry expert and frequent commentator on the intersection of culture and technology, featured in Wired, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times . She was recognized as one of the "100 Most Creative People in Business" by Fast Company, inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame, and honored as the 2013 Woman of Vision for Leadership by the Anita Borg Institute. With Paul Dourish, she authored Divining a Digital Future (2011).

More From The Debate

David Weinberger is a senior researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard, where he previously served as co-director of the Library Innovation Lab and led its Interoperability Initiative. He is currently a fellow at the Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy. His most recent book, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room (2014), won two international Best Book of the Year awards. He has been published by Wired, Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, The New York Times and elsewhere. Additionally, Weinberger advised three U.S. presidential campaigns on Internet issues and was a Franklin Fellow at the State Department. Called a "marketing guru" by The Wall Street Journal, he was previously a high-tech marketing VP and strategic marketing consultant, a dotcom entrepreneur, and now serves on the advisory boards of several tech companies.

Is technology making us dumber or smarter? Yes

Professor of History, Texas A&M University

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Jonathan Coopersmith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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The smartphone in your hand enables you to record a video, edit it and send it around the world. With your phone, you can navigate in cities, buy a car, track your vital signs and accomplish thousands of other tasks. And so?

Each of those activities used to demand learning specific skills and acquiring the necessary resources to do them. Making a film? First, get a movie camera and the supporting technologies (film, lights, editing equipment). Second, learn how to use them and hire a crew. Third, shoot the movie. Fourth, develop and edit the film. Fifth, make copies and distribute them.

Now all of those tasks are solved by technology. We need no longer learn the intricate details when the smartphone programmers have taken care of so much. But filmmakers are now freer to focus on their craft, and it is easier than ever to become a filmmaker. Historically, technology has made us individually dumber and individually smarter – and collectively smarter. Technology has made us able to do more while understanding less about what we are doing, and has increased our dependence on others.

These are not recent trends, but part of the history of technology since the first humans began to farm. In recent decades, three major changes have accelerated the process, starting with the increasing pace of humans specializing in particular skills. In addition, we outsource more skills to technological tools, like a movie-making app on a smartphone, that relieve us of the challenge of learning large amounts of technical knowledge. And many more people have access to technology than in the past, allowing them to use these tools much more readily.

Specialized knowledge

Specialization enables us to become very good at some activities, but that investment in learning – for example, how to be an ER nurse or computer coder – comes at the expense of other skills like how to grow your own food or build your own shelter.

As Adam Smith noted in his 1776 “Wealth of Nations,” specialization enables people to become more efficient and productive at one set of tasks, but with a trade-off of increased dependence on others for additional needs. In theory, everyone benefits.

Specialization has moral and pragmatic consequences. Skilled workers are more likely to be employed and earn more than their unskilled counterparts. One reason the United States won World War II was that draft boards kept some trained workers, engineers and scientists working on the home front instead of sending them to fight. A skilled machine tool operator or oil-rig roustabout contributed more to winning the war by staying at home and sticking to a specialized role than by heading to the front with a rifle. It also meant other men (and some women) donned uniforms and had a much greater chance of dying.

Making machines for the rest of us

Incorporating human skills into a machine – called “blackboxing” because it makes the operations invisible to the user – allows more people to, for example, take a blood pressure measurement without investing the time, resources and effort into learning the skills previously needed to use a blood pressure cuff. Putting the expertise in the machine lowers the barriers to entry for doing something because the person does not need to know as much. For example, contrast learning to drive a car with a manual versus an automatic transmission.

Mass production of blackboxed technologies enables their widespread use. Smartphones and automated blood pressure monitors would be far less effective if only thousands instead of tens of millions of people could use them. Less happily, producing tens of millions of automatic rifles like AK-47s means individuals can kill far more people far more easily compared with more primitive weapons like knives.

More practically, we depend on others to do what we cannot do at all or as well. City dwellers in particular depend on vast, mostly invisible structures to provide their power , remove their waste and ensure food and tens of thousands of other items are available.

Overreliance on technology is dangerous

A major downside of increased dependence on technologies is the increased consequences if those technologies break or disappear. Lewis Dartnell’s “The Knowledge” offers a delightful (and frightening) exploration of how survivors of a humanity-devastating apocaplyse could salvage and maintain 21st-century technologies.

Just one example of many is that the U.S. Naval Academy resumed training officers to navigate by sextants . Historically the only way to determine a ship’s location at sea, this technique is being taught again both as a backup in case cyberattackers interfere with GPS signals and to give navigators a better feel of what their computers are doing.

How do people survive and prosper in this world of increasing dependence and change? It’s impossible to be truly self-reliant, but it is possible to learn more about the technologies we use, to learn basic skills of repairing and fixing them (hint: always check the connections and read the manual) and to find people who know more about particular topics. In this way the Internet’s vast wealth of information can not only increase our dependence but also decrease it (of course, skepticism about online information is never a bad idea). Thinking about what happens if something goes wrong can be a useful exercise in planning or a descent into obsessive worrying.

Individually, we depend more on our technologies than ever before – but we can do more than ever before. Collectively, technology has made us smarter, more capable and more productive. What technology has not done is make us wiser.

Editor’s note: This article was part of a collaboration with Point Taken, a program from GBH that aired on PBS .

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In the age of rapid technological advancements, our lives have been significantly transformed, offering conveniences beyond the imagination of previous generations. While these innovations present numerous benefits, they also pose a unique set of challenges, most notably, the concern that they might be fostering lazy among humans. This article provides an in-depth exploration of the ways technology potentially contributes to different forms of human lazy – physical, cognitive, social, and beyond.

Promoting Physical Inactivity

The rise of technology has brought about a significant shift in our lifestyle patterns, most notably, an increase in physical inactivity. Traditionally, everyday tasks like commuting, household chores, shopping, and even leisure activities involved a certain level of physical effort. However, the advent of smart appliances, electric vehicles, and e-commerce has replaced physical labor with digital convenience. We have vacuum cleaners that navigate themselves, drones that deliver packages, and smart home systems that control everything from lighting to temperature with a simple voice command. Consequently, the level of physical exertion, once required in our daily routines, has considerably reduced, promoting a sedentary lifestyle. Studies link this decline in physical activity to increased obesity rates and related health issues such as heart disease and diabetes.

Also read: Things to Know About Building a Personal Brand Online

Digital Overreliance and Cognitive lazy

Technology has also significantly impacted our mental activity, primarily due to our overreliance on digital tools for basic cognitive tasks. In the era before smartphones, tasks such as remembering phone numbers, birthdays, or directions were a part of our everyday mental exercise. Now, digital calendars, GPS systems , and contact lists have assumed these roles. As a result, our memory and attention skills are not exercised as much, which could lead to cognitive decline over time. We have started to rely heavily on digital assistance even for simple tasks like calculations, spelling, or setting reminders, thereby encouraging a certain level of mental lazy.

Reading and Research in the Digital Age Technology Makes Us Lazy

When it comes to reading and research, technology has significantly altered our behavior, often encouraging a form of intellectual lazy. In the past, conducting research meant spending hours in libraries, combing through books, journals, and archives. It required patience, perseverance, and intellectual rigor. The digital age, however, offers information at our fingertips through search engines and online databases. While the ease of accessibility is beneficial, it also fosters a ‘quick-fix’ mentality. People tend to skim over content instead of engaging in deep reading, accept information at face value instead of critically analyzing it, and lose the patience for extensive research. Such practices could potentially affect our intellectual depth and commitment to scholarly pursuits.

Technology’s Impact on Social Interactions

The proliferation of technology has also dramatically influenced our social lives, fostering a form of social lazy. Social media platforms and instant messaging apps have replaced a significant portion of our face-to-face interactions. While these tools connect us with individuals worldwide and offer new forms of interaction, they also lead to reduced physical socialization. We often prefer texting over meeting in person, and scrolling through social feeds over active participation in social events. This shift towards digital communication might cause us to lose out on the richness of in-person interactions, leading to a superficiality that could be termed social lazy.

The Effect on Problem-Solving Skills

Another area where technology potentially contributes to lazy is problem-solving. Before the influx of tech-based solutions, humans relied on their creativity, resourcefulness, and critical thinking to tackle challenges. Today, however, our first instinct is often to turn to an app or a software solution for our problems. We look for immediate answers on search engines rather than exploring solutions ourselves, and we use apps to manage our time, finances, health, and more. This increasing dependency on technology can stifle our inherent problem-solving skills and initiative, leading to a form of solution-oriented lazy.

It’s important to remember, though, that technology is a tool, and its impacts largely depend on how we utilize it. While technology can make tasks easier and more efficient, excessive reliance and misuse can lead to negative effects, including lazy.

Also read: Types Of Link Building Strategies For Website

Impacts on Learning and Skill Acquisition

The sphere of education and skill acquisition is another area where technology’s convenience can inadvertently foster lazy. With the advent of online tutorials, digital classrooms, and AI-powered tutors, learning new skills or acquiring knowledge has never been easier. However, the ease and speed of learning can sometimes lead to a shallow understanding of subjects. Without the need to delve deep, wrestle with complex concepts, or engage in exhaustive research, learners may settle for surface-level comprehension. This approach may impede the cultivation of analytical skills, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities.

Diminishing Effort in Personal Care

Advancements in technology have also extended into the realm of personal care, often reducing the effort we invest in maintaining our physical wellbeing. Digital health trackers , diet apps, and online fitness tutorials offer us streamlined ways to stay healthy. While they provide valuable services, an overreliance on them can result in us being less actively involved in understanding our health and wellbeing. Instead of listening to our bodies or seeking professional medical advice when needed, we might depend too heavily on what our apps tell us, cultivating a form of health-related lazy.

Desensitization to the Environment

In an era where virtual reality can replicate natural experiences and indoor technology can simulate outdoor climates, we may become increasingly disconnected from our environment. The ease with which we can control our surroundings might lead us to become less adaptive and more complacent. This can foster a form of environmental lazy, where we fail to actively engage with our environment or respond adequately to changes in it.

Also read: Unlocking the Power of PeopleTools ATT, Simplifying User Authentication for AT&T Services

Online Activism vs. Real-World Action

The rise of digital platforms has given birth to a new form of activism – often termed ‘slacktivism’. While technology allows us to spread awareness, sign petitions, and donate with a click, it might also decrease the likelihood of taking concrete action in the real world. This easy, low-effort form of activism can lead to a decline in active participation in societal issues, thus fostering a sort of civic lazy.

These examples further illuminate how technology, while making life easier, can also foster different forms of lazy. However, it’s important to remember that the key lies in our approach to technology, not the technology itself. By adopting a balanced approach – one that involves deep and active learning, conscious engagement with personal health, active involvement with our environment, and real-world participation in societal issues – we can mitigate the risk of falling into the trap of lazy.

Also read: Strategies To Prepare Your Business For Future Automation

So, how can we circumnavigate these issues?

Striking a balance is key. Promoting physical activities and integrating them into our routines can counteract the sedentary lifestyle that technology often promotes. Balancing digital learning methods with traditional ones can help retain our critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Emphasizing the value of face-to-face interactions and utilizing technology to enhance these experiences, rather than replace them, can foster deeper social connections.

Technology, in its many manifestations, does indeed have the potential to foster lazy. Yet, it’s crucial to remember that these tools are not inherently detrimental. They are, after all, just tools – their impact lies significantly in how we choose to use them. Striking a balance between digital convenience and active effort is key. We can embrace the benefits technology offers while consciously avoiding its potential pitfalls. By fostering active learning, encouraging physical activity, promoting in-person social interactions, and engaging proactively with our environment, we can ensure that technology serves as a catalyst for progress and not an enabler of complacency.

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Published: 09 June 2023

Impact of artificial intelligence on human loss in decision making, laziness and safety in education

Sayed Fayaz Ahmad 1 ,
Heesup Han ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-6356-3001 2 ,
Muhammad Mansoor Alam 3 ,
Mohd. Khairul Rehmat 4 ,
Muhammad Irshad 5 ,
Marcelo Arraño-Muñoz 6 &
Antonio Ariza-Montes ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5921-0753 7

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10 , Article number: 311 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 29 June 2023

This article has been updated

This study examines the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on loss in decision-making, laziness, and privacy concerns among university students in Pakistan and China. Like other sectors, education also adopts AI technologies to address modern-day challenges. AI investment will grow to USD 253.82 million from 2021 to 2025. However, worryingly, researchers and institutions across the globe are praising the positive role of AI but ignoring its concerns. This study is based on qualitative methodology using PLS-Smart for the data analysis. Primary data was collected from 285 students from different universities in Pakistan and China. The purposive Sampling technique was used to draw the sample from the population. The data analysis findings show that AI significantly impacts the loss of human decision-making and makes humans lazy. It also impacts security and privacy. The findings show that 68.9% of laziness in humans, 68.6% in personal privacy and security issues, and 27.7% in the loss of decision-making are due to the impact of artificial intelligence in Pakistani and Chinese society. From this, it was observed that human laziness is the most affected area due to AI. However, this study argues that significant preventive measures are necessary before implementing AI technology in education. Accepting AI without addressing the major human concerns would be like summoning the devils. Concentrating on justified designing and deploying and using AI for education is recommended to address the issue.

What colour are your eyes? Teaching the genetics of eye colour & colour vision. Edridge Green Lecture RCOphth Annual Congress Glasgow May 2019

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Introduction.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a vast technology used in the education sector. Several types of AI technology are used in education (Nemorin et al., 2022 ). Majorly includes Plagiarism Detection, Exam Integrity (Ade-Ibijola et al., 2022 ), Chatbots for Enrollment and Retention (Nakitare and Otike, 2022 ), Learning Management Systems, Transcription of Faculty Lectures, Enhanced Online Discussion Boards, Analyzing Student Success Metrics, and Academic Research (Nakitare and Otike, 2022 ). Nowadays, Education Technology (EdTech) companies are deploying emotional AI to quantify social and emotional learning (McStay, 2020 ). Artificial intelligence, affective computing methods, and machine learning are collectively called “emotional AI” (AI). Artificial intelligence (AI) shapes our future more powerfully than any other century’s invention. Anyone who does not understand it will soon feel left behind, waking up in a world full of technology that feels more and more like magic (Maini and Sabri, 2017 ). Undoubtedly, AI technology has significant importance, and its role has been witnessed in the recent pandemic. Many researchers agree it can be essential in education (Sayed et al., 2021 ). but this does not mean it will always be beneficial and free from ethical concerns (Dastin, 2018 ). Due to this, many researchers focus on its development and use but keep their ethical considerations in mind (Justin and Mizuko, 2017 ). Some believe that although the intentions behind AI in education may be positive, this may not be sufficient to prove it ethical (Whittaker and Crawford, 2018 ).

There is a severe need to understand the meaning of being “ethical” in the context of AI and education. It is also essential to find out the possible unintended consequences of the use of AI in education and the main concerns of AI in education, and other considerations. Generally, AI’s ethical issues and concerns are innovation cost, consent issues, personal data misuse, criminal and malicious use, freedom and autonomy loss, and the decision-making loss of humans, etc. (Stahl B. C., 2021 a, 2021 b). Although, technology also enhances organizational information security (Ahmad et al., 2021 ) and competitive advantage (Sayed and Muhammad, 2015 ) and enhances customer relationships (Rasheed et al., 2015 ). Researchers are afraid that by 2030 the AI revolution will focus on enhancing benefits and social control but will also raise ethical concerns, and there is no consensus among them. A clear division regarding AI’s positive impact on life and moral standing (Rainie et al., 2021 ).

It is evident from the literature on the ethics of AI that besides its enormous advantages, many challenges also emerge with the development of AI in the context of moral values, behavior, trust, and privacy, to name a few. The education sector faces many ethical challenges while implementing or using AI. Many researchers are exploring the area further. We divide AI in education into three levels. First, the technology itself, its manufacturer, developer, etc. The second is its impact on the teacher, and the third is on the learner or student.

Foremost, there is a need to develop AI technology for education, which cannot be the basis of ethical issues or concerns (Ayling and Chapman, 2022 ). The high expectations of AI have triggered worldwide interest and concern, generating 400+ policy documents on responsible AI. Intense discussions over ethical issues lay a helpful foundation, preparing researchers, managers, policymakers, and educators for constructive discussions that will lead to clear recommendations for building reliable, safe, and trustworthy systems that will be a commercial success (Landwehr, 2015 ). But the question is, is it possible to develop an AI technology for education that will never cause an ethical concern? Maybe the developer or the manufacturer has dishonest gain from the AI technology in education. Maybe their intentions are not towards the betterment and assistance of education. Such questions come to mind when someone talks about the impact of AI in Education. Even if the development of AI technology is clear from any ethical concerns from the developer or manufacturer, there is no guarantee for the opposite view. The risk of ethical considerations will also rely upon the technical quality. Higher quality will minimize the risk but is it possible for all educational institutions to implement expensive technology of higher quality? (Shneiderman, 2021 ). Secondly, many issues may arise when teachers use AI technology (Topcu and Zuck, 2020 ). It may be security, usage, implementation, etc. Questions about security, bias, affordability, trust, etc., come to mind (IEEE, 2019 ). Thirdly, privacy, trust, safety, and health issues exist at the user level. To address such questions, a robust regulatory framework and policies are required. Still, unfortunately, no framework has been devised, no guidelines have been agreed upon, no policies have been developed, and no regulations have been enacted to address the ethical issues raised by AI in education (Rosé et al., 2018 ).

It is evident that AI technology has many concerns (Stahl B. C., 2021 a, 2021 b), and like other sectors, the education sector is also facing challenges (Hax, 2018 ). If not all the issues/problems directly affect education and learning, most directly or indirectly impact the education process. So, it is difficult to decide whether AI has a positive ethical impact on education or negative or somewhat positive or negative. The debate on ethical concerns about AI technology will continue from case to case and context to context (Petousi and Sifaki, 2020 ). This research is focused on the following three moral fears of AI in education:

Security and privacy

Loss of human decision-making

Making humans lazy.

Although many other concerns about AI exist in education, these three are the most common and challenging in the current era. Additionally, no researcher can broaden the study beyond the scope.

Theoretical discussion

Ai in education.

Technology has impacted almost every sector; reasonably, it also needs time (Leeming, 2021 ). From telecommunication to communication and health to education, it plays a significant role and assists humanity in one way or another (Stahl A., 2021 a, 2021 b). No one can deny its importance and applications for life, which provides a solid reason for its existence and development. One of the most critical technologies is artificial intelligence (AI) (Ross, 2021 ). AI has applications in many sectors, and education is one. Many AI applications in education include tutoring, educational assistance, feedback, social robots, admission, grading, analytics, trial and error, virtual reality, etc. (Tahiru, 2021 ).

AI is based on computer programming or computational approaches; questions can be raised on the process of data analysis, interpretation, sharing, and processing (Holmes et al., 2019 ) and how the biases should be prevented, which may impact the rights of students as it is believed that design biases may increase with time and how it will address concerns associated with gender, race, age, income inequality, social status, etc. (Tarran, 2018 ). Like any other technology, there are also some challenges related to AI and its application in education and learning. This paper focuses on the ethical concerns of AI in education. Some problems are related to privacy, data access, right and wrong responsibility, and student records, to name a few (Petousi and Sifaki, 2020 ). In addition, data hacking and manipulation can challenge personal privacy and control; a need exists to understand the ethical guidelines clearly (Fjelland, 2020 ).

Perhaps the most important ethical guidelines for developing educational AI systems are well-being, ensuring workplace safety, trustworthiness, fairness, honoring intellectual property rights, privacy, and confidentiality. In addition, the following ten principles were also framed (Aiken and Epstein, 2000 ).

Ensure encouragement of the user.

Ensure safe human–machine interaction and collaborative learning

Positive character traits are to be ensured.

Overloading of information to be avoided

Build an encouraging and curious learning environment

Ergonomics features to be considered

Ensure the system promotes the roles and skills of a teacher and never replaces him

Having respect for cultural values

Ensure diversity accommodation of students

Avoid glorifying the system and weakening the human role and potential for growth and learning.

If the above principles are discussed individually, many questions arise while using AI technology in education. From its design and planning to use and impact, at every stage, ethical concerns arise and are there. It’s not the purpose for which AI technology is developed and designed. Technology is advantageous for one thing but dangerous for another, and the problem is how to disintegrate the two (Vincent and van, 2022 ).

In addition to the proper framework and principles not being followed during the planning and development of AI for Education, bias, overconfidence, wrong estimates, etc., are additional sources of ethical concerns.

Security and privacy issues

Stephen Hawking once said that success in creating AI would be the most significant event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last unless we learn to avoid the risks. Security is one of the major concerns associated with AI and learning (Köbis and Mehner, 2021 ). Trust-worthy artificial intelligence (AI) in education: Promises and challenges (Petousi and Sifaki, 2020 ; Owoc et al., 2021 ). Most educational institutions nowadays use AI technology in the learning process, and the area attracted researchers and interests. Many researchers agree that AI significantly contributes to e-learning and education (Nawaz et al. 2020 ; Ahmed and Nashat, 2020 ). Their claim is practically proved by the recent COVID-19 pandemic (Torda, 2020 ; Cavus et al., 2021 ). But AI or machine learning also brought many concerns and challenges to the education sector, and security and privacy are the biggest.

No one can deny that AI systems and applications are becoming a part of classrooms and education in one form or another (Sayantani, 2021 ). Each tool works according to its way, and the student and teacher use it accordingly. It creates an immersive learning experience using voices to access information and invites potential privacy and security risks (Gocen and Aydemir, 2020 ). While answering a question related to privacy concerns focuses on student safety as the number one concern of AI devices and usage. The same may go for the teacher’s case as well.

Additionally, teachers know less about the rights, acts, and laws of privacy and security, their impact and consequences, and any violations cost to the students, teachers, and country (Vadapalli, 2021 ). Machine learning or AI systems are purely based on data availability. Without data, it is nothing, and the risk is unavoidable of its misuse and leaks for a lousy purpose (Hübner, 2021 ).

AI systems collect and use enormous data for making predictions and patterns; there is a chance of biases and discrimination (Weyerer and Langer, 2019 ). Many people are now concerned with the ethical attributes of AI systems and believe that the security issue must be considered in AI system development and deployment (Samtani et al., 2021 ). The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal is one of the significant examples of how data collected through technology is vulnerable to privacy concerns. Although much work has been done, as the National Science Foundation recognizes, much more is still necessary (Calif, 2021 ). According to Kurt Markley, schools, colleges, and universities have big banks of student records comprising data related to their health, social security numbers, payment information, etc., and are at risk. It is necessary that learning institutions continuously re-evaluate and re-design the security practices to make the data secure and prevent any data breaches. The trouble is even more in remote learning environments or when information technology is effective (Chan and Morgan, 2019 ).

It is also of importance and concern that in the current era of advanced technology, AI systems are getting more interconnected to cybersecurity due to the advancement of hardware and software (Mengidis et al., 2019 ). This has raised significant concerns regarding the security of various stakeholders and emphasizes the procedures the policymakers must adopt to prevent or minimize the threat (ELever and Kifayat, 2020 ). It is also important to note that security concerns increase with network and endpoints in remote learning. One problem is that protecting e-learning technology from cyber-attacks is neither easy nor requires less money, especially in the education sector, with a limited budget for academic activities (Huls, 2021 ). Another reason this severe threat exists is because of very few technical staff in an educational institution; hiring them is another economic issue. Although, to some extent, using intelligent technology of AI and machine learning, the level and threat of security decrease, again, the issue is that neither every teacher is a professional and trained enough to use the technology nor able to handle the common threats. And as the use of AI in education increases, the danger of security concerns also increases (Taddeo et al., 2019 ). No one can run from the threat of AI concerning cybersecurity, and it behaves like a double-edged sword (Siau and Wang, 2020 ).

Digital security is the most significant risk and ethical concern of using AI in education systems, where criminals hack machines and sell data for other purposes (Venema, 2021 ). We alter our safety and privacy (Sutton et al., 2018 ). The question remains: whether our privacy is secured, and when will AI systems become able to keep our confidentiality connected? The answer is beyond human knowledge (Kirn, 2007 ).

Human interactions with AI are increasing day by day. For example, various AI applications, like robots, chatbots, etc., are used in e-learning and education. Many will learn human-like habits one day, but some human attributes, like self-awareness, consciousness, etc., will remain a dream. AI still needs data and uses it for learning patterns and making decisions; privacy will always remain an issue (Mhlanga, 2021 ). On the one hand, it is a fact that AI systems are associated with various human rights issues, which can be evaluated from case to case. AI has many complex pre-existing impacts regarding human rights because it is not installed or implemented against a blank slate but as a backdrop of societal conditions. Among many human rights that international law assures, privacy is impacted by it (Levin, 2018 ). From the discussed review, we draw the following hypothesis.

H 1 : There is a significant impact of artificial intelligence on the security and privacy issues

AI is a technology that significantly impacts Industry 4.0, transforming almost every aspect of human life and society (Jones, 2014 ). The rising role of AI in organizations and individuals feared the persons like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking. Who thinks it is possible when AI reaches its advanced level, there is a risk it might be out of control for humans (Clark et al., 2018 ). It is alarming that research increased eight times compared to the other sectors. Most firms and countries invest in capturing and growing AI technologies, skills, and education (Oh et al., 2017 ). Yet the primary concern of AI adoption is that it complicates the role of AI in sustainable value creation and minimizes human control (Noema, 2021 ).

When the usage and dependency of AI are increased, this will automatically limit the human brain’s thinking capacity. This, as a result, rapidly decreases the thinking capacity of humans. This removes intelligence capacities from humans and makes them more artificial. In addition, so much interaction with technology has pushed us to think like algorithms without understanding (Sarwat, 2018 ). Another issue is the human dependency on AI technology in almost every walk of life. Undoubtedly, it has improved living standards and made life easier, but it has impacted human life miserably and made humans impatient and lazy (Krakauer, 2016 ). It will slowly and gradually starve the human brain of thoughtfulness and mental efforts as it gets deep into each activity, like planning and organizing. High-level reliance on AI may degrade professional skills and generate stress when physical or brain measures are needed (Gocen and Aydemir, 2020 ).

AI is minimizing our autonomous role, replacing our choices with its choices, and making us lazy in various walks of life (Danaher, 2018 ). It is argued that AI undermines human autonomy and responsibilities, leading to a knock-out effect on happiness and fulfilment (C. Eric, 2019 ). The impact will not remain on a specific group of people or area but will also encompass the education sector. Teachers and students will use AI applications while doing a task/assignment, or their work might be performed automatically. Progressively, getting an addiction to AI use will lead to laziness and a problematic situation in the future. To summarize the review, the following hypothesis is made:

H 2 : There is a significant impact of artificial intelligence on human laziness

Technology plays an essential role in decision-making. It helps humans use information and knowledge properly to make suitable decisions for their organization and innovations (Ahmad, 2019 ). Humans are producing large volumes of data, and to make it efficient, firms are adopting and using AI and kicking humans out of using the data. Humans think they are getting benefits and saving time by using AI in their decisions. But it is overcoming the human biological processors through lowing cognition capabilities (Jarrahi, 2018 ).

It is a fact that AI technologies and applications have many benefits. Still, AI technologies have severe negative consequences, and the limitation of their role in human decision-making is one of them. Slowly and gradually, AI limits and replaces the human role in decision-making. Human mental capabilities like intuitive analysis, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving are getting out of decision-making (Ghosh et al., 2019 ). Consequently, this will lead to their loss as there is a saying, use it or lose it. The speed of adaptation of AI technology is evident from the usage of AI in the strategic decision-making processes, which has increased from 10 to 80% in five years (Sebastian and Sebastian, 2021 ).

Walmart and Amazon have integrated AI into their recruitment process and make decisions about their product. And it’s getting more into the top management decisions (Libert, 2017 ). Organizations use AI to analyze data and make complex decisions effectively to obtain a competitive advantage. Although AI is helping the decision-making process in various sectors, humans still have the last say in making any decision. It highlights the importance of humans’ role in the process and the need to ensure that AI technology and humans work side by side (Meissner and Keding, 2021 ). The hybrid model of the human–machine collaboration approach is believed to merge in the future (Subramaniam, 2022 ).

The role of AI in decision-making in educational institutions is spreading daily. Universities are using AI in both academic and administrative activities. From students searching for program admission requirements to the issuance of degrees, they are now assisted by AI personalization, tutoring, quick responses, 24/7 access to learning, answering questions, and task automation are the leading roles AI plays in the education sector (Karandish, 2021 ).

In all the above roles, AI collects data, analyzes it, and then responds, i.e., makes decisions. It is necessary to ask some simple but essential questions: Does AI make ethical choices? The answer is AI was found to be racist, and its choice might not be ethical (Tran, 2021 ). The second question is, does AI impact human decision-making capabilities? While using an intelligent system, applicants may submit their records directly to the designer and get approval for admission tests without human scrutiny. One reason is that the authorities will trust the system; the second may be the laziness created by task automation among the leaders.

Similarly, in keeping the records of students and analyzing their data, again, the choice will be dependent on the decision made by the system, either due to trust or due to the laziness created by task automation among the authorities. Almost in every task, the teachers and other workers lose the power of cognition while making academic or administrative decisions. And their dependency increases daily on the AI systems installed in the institution. To summarize the review, in any educational organization, AI makes operations automatic and minimizes staff participation in performing various tasks and making decisions. The teachers and other administrative staff are helpless in front of AI as the machines perform many of their functions. They are losing the skills of traditional tasks to be completed in an educational setting and consequently losing the reasoning capabilities of decision-making.

H 3 : There is a significant impact of artificial intelligence with the loss of human decision making

Conceptual framework

The impact of artificial intelligence on human loss in decision making, laziness, and safety in education.

Methodology

Research design.

The research philosophy focuses on the mechanism of beliefs and assumptions regarding knowledge development. It is precisely what the researcher works on while conducting research and mounting expertise in a particular area. In this research, the positivist philosophy of analysis is used. Positivism focuses on an observable social reality that produces the laws, just like generalizations. This philosophy uses the existing theory for hypotheses development in this study.

Furthermore, this philosophy is used because this study is about measurable and quantifiable data. The quantitative method is followed for data collection and analysis in this research. The quantitative practice focuses on quantifiable numbers and provides a systematic approach to assessing incidences and their associations. Moreover, while carrying out this study, the author evaluated the validity and reliability tools to ensure rigor in data. The primary approach is used because the data collected in this research is first-hand, which means it is collected directly from the respondents.

Sample and sampling techniques

The purposive sampling technique was used in this study for the primary data collection. This technique is used because it targets a small number of participants to participate in the survey, and their feedback shows the entire population (Davies and Hughes, 2014 ). Purposive sampling is a recognized non-probabilistic sampling technique because the author chose the participants based on the study’s purpose. The respondents of this study were students at different universities in Pakistan and China. Following the ethical guidelines, consent was taken from the participants. After that, they were asked to give their responses through a questionnaire. The number of participants who took part in the study was 285. This data collection was around two months, from 4 July 2022 to 31 August 2022.

The survey instrument is divided into two parts. The initial portion of the questionnaire comprised demographic questions that included gender, age, country, and educational level. The second portion of the instrument had the Likert scale questions of the latent variables. This study model is composed of four latent variables. All four latent variables are measured through their developed Likert scale questions. All five measures of the latent variables are adopted from the different past studies that have developed and validated these scales. The measures of artificial intelligence are composed of seven items adopted from the study of Suh and Ahn ( 2022 ). The loss measures in decision-making consist of five items adopted from the study of Niese ( 2019 ). The measures of safety and security issues are composed of five items adopted from the study of Youn ( 2009 ). The measure of human laziness comprises four items adopted from the study of Dautov ( 2020 ). All of them are measured on the Likert scale of five, one for the least level of agreement and five for the highest level of agreement. Table 1 shows the details of the items of each construct.

Common method bias

CMB is a major problem faced by the researcher working on the primary survey data research. There are many causes for this dilemma. The primary reason is the response tendency, in which the respondents of the research rate equally to all questions (Jordan and Troth, 2020 ). A model’s VIF values are not limited to multi-collinearity diagnostics but also indicate the common method bias (Kock, 2015 ). If the VIF values of the individual items present in the model are equal to or <3.3, then it is considered that the model is free from the common method bias. Table 2 shows that all the VIF values are <3.3, which indicates that the data collected by the primary survey is almost free from the issues of common bias.

Reliability and validity of the data

Reliability and validity confirm the health of the instrument and survey data for further analysis. Two tools are used in structural equation modeling for reliability: item reliability and construct reliability. The outer loading of each item gauges the item’s reliability. Its threshold value is 0.706, but in some cases, even 0.5 is also acceptable if the basic assumption of the convergent validity is not violated (Hair and Alamer, 2022 ). Cronbach’s Alpha and composite reliability are the most used tools to measure construct reliability. The threshold value is 0.7 (Hair Jr et al., 2021 ). Table 3 shows that all the items of each construct have outer loading values greater than 0.7. Only one item of artificial intelligence and one item of decision making is below 0.7 but within the minimum limit of 0.4, and both AVE values are also good. While each construct Cronbach’s alpha and composite reliability values are >0.7, both measures of reliability, item reliability, and construct reliability are established. For the validity of the data, there are also two measures used one is convergent validity, and the other is discriminant validity. For convergent validity, AVE values are used. The threshold value for the AVE is 0.5 (Hair and Alamer, 2022 ). From the table of reliability and validity, all the constructs have AVE values >0.5, indicating that all the constructs are convergently valid.

In Smart-PLS, three tools are used to measure discriminant validity: the Farnell Larker criteria, HTMT ratios, and the cross-loadings of the items. The threshold value for the Farnell Licker criteria is that the diagonal values of the table must be greater than the values of its corresponding rows and columns. Table 4 shows that all the diagonal values of the square root of the AVE are greater than their corresponding values of both columns and rows. The threshold value for the HTMT values is 0.85 or less (Joe F. Hair Jr et al., 2020 ). Table 5 shows that all the values are less than 0.85. Table 6 shows that they must have self-loading with their construct values greater than the cross-loading with other constructs. Table 6 shows that all the self-loadings are greater than the cross-loadings. All three above measures of discriminant validity show that the data is discriminately valid.

Results and discussion

Demographic profile of the respondents.

Table 7 shows the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Among 285 respondents, 164 (75.5%) are male, while 121 (42.5%) are female. The data was collected from different universities in China and Pakistan. The table shows that 142 (50.2%) are Chinese students, and 141 (49.8%) are Pakistani students. The age group section shows that the students are divided into three age groups, <20 years, 20–25 years, and 26 years and above. Most students belong to the age group 20–25 years, which is 140 (49.1%), while 26 (9.1%) are <20 years old and 119 (41.8%) are 26 years and above. The fourth and last section of the table shows the program of the student’s studies. According to this, 149 (52.3%) students are undergraduates, 119 (41.8%) are graduates, and 17 (6%) are post-graduates.

Structural model

The structural model explains the relationships among study variables. The proposed structural model is exhibited in Fig. 2 .

Results model for the Impact of artificial intelligence on human loss in decision-making, laziness, and safety in education.

Regression analysis

Table 8 shows the total direct relationships in the model. The first direct relationship is between artificial intelligence to loss in human decision-making, with a beta value of 0.277. The beta value shows that one unit increase in artificial intelligence will lose human decision-making by 0.277 units among university students in Pakistan and China. This relationship having the t value of 5.040, greater than the threshold value of 1.96, and a p -value of 0.000, <0.05, shows that the relationship is statistically significant. The second relationship is between artificial intelligence the human laziness. The beta value for this relationship is 0.689, which shows that one unit increase in artificial intelligence will make the students of Pakistan and China universities lazy by 0.689 units. The t -value for the relationship is 23.257, which is greater than the threshold value of 1.96, and a p -value of 0.000, which is smaller than the threshold value of 0.05, which shows that this relationship is also statistically significant. The third and last relationship is from artificial intelligence to security and privacy issues of Pakistani and Chinese university students. The beta value for this relationship is 0.686, which shows that a one-unit increase in artificial intelligence will increase security and privacy issues by 0.686. The t -value for the relationship is 17.105, which is greater than the threshold value of 1.96, and the p -value is 0.000, which is smaller than a threshold value of 0.05, indicating that this relationship is also statistically significant.

Hypothesis testing

Table 8 also indicates that the results support all three hypotheses.

Model fitness

Once the reliability and validity of the measurement model are confirmed, the structural model fitness must be assessed in the next step. For the model fitness, several measures are available in the SmartPLS, like SRMR, Chi-square, NFI, etc., but most of the researcher recommends the SRMR for the model fitness in the PLS-SEM. When applying PLS-SEM, a value <0.08 is generally considered a good fit (Hu and Bentler, 1998 ). However, the table of model fitness shows that the SRMR value is 0.06, which is less than the threshold value of 0.08, which indicates that the model is fit.

Predictive relevance of the model

Table 9 shows the model’s prediction power, as we know that the model has total dependent variables. Then there are three predictive values for the model for each variable. The threshold value for predicting the model power is greater than zero. However, Q 2 values of 0.02, 0.15, and 0.35, respectively, indicate that an independent variable of the model has a low, moderate, or high predictive relevance for a certain endogenous construct (Hair et al., 2013 ). Human laziness has the highest predictive relevance, with a Q 2 value of 0.338, which shows a moderate effect. Safety and security issues have the second largest predictive relevance with the Q 2 value of 0.314, which also show a moderate effect. The last and smallest predictive relevance in decision-making with a Q 2 value of 0.033 which shows a low effect. A greater Q 2 value shows that the variable or model has the highest prediction power.

Importance performance matrix analysis (IPMA)

Table 10 shows the importance and performance of each independent variable for the dependent variables. We see that artificial intelligence has the same performance of 68.78% for all three variables: human laziness, decision-making, safety, and security. While the importance of artificial intelligence, human laziness is 68.9%, loss in decision-making is 25.1%, and safety and security are 74.6%. This table shows that safety and privacy have the highest importance, and their performance is recommended to be increased to meet the important requirements. Figures 3 – 5 also show all three variables’ importance compared to performance with artificial intelligence.

Importance-performance map—human loss in decision making and artificial intelligence.

Importance-performance map—human laziness and artificial intelligence.

Importance-performance map—safety and privacy and artificial intelligence.

Multi-group analysis (MGA)

Multigroup analysis is a technique in structural equation modeling that compares the effects of two classes of categorical variables on the model’s relationships. The first category is gender, composed of male and female subgroups or types. Table 10 shows the gender comparison for all three relationships. The data record shows that there were 164 males and 121 females. The p -values of all three relationships are >0.05, which shows that gender is not moderate in any of the relationships. Table 10 shows the country-wise comparison for all three relationships in the model. The p -values of all three relationships are >0.05, indicating no moderating effect of the country on all three relationships. The data records show 143 Pakistanis and 142 Chinese based on the country’s origin.

AI is becoming an increasingly important element of our lives, with its impact felt in various aspects of our daily life. Like any other technological advancement, there are both benefits and challenges. This study examined the association of AI with human loss in decision-making, laziness and safety and privacy concerns. The results given Tables 11 and 12 show that AI has a significant positive relationship with all these variables. The findings of this study also support that the use of AI technologies is creating problems for users related to security and privacy. Previous research has also shown similar results (Bartoletti, 2019 ; Saura et al., 2022 ; Bartneck et al., 2021 ). Using AI technology in an educational organization also leads to security and privacy issues for students, teachers, and institutions. In today’s information age, security and privacy are critical concerns of AI technology use in educational organizations (Kamenskih, 2022 ). Skills specific to using AI technology are required for its effective use. Insufficient knowledge about the use will lead to security and privacy issues (Vazhayil and Shetty, 2019 ). Mostly, educational firms do not have AI technology experts in managing it, which again increases its vulnerability in the context of security and privacy issues. Even if its users have sound skills and the firms have experienced AI managers, no one can deny that any security or privacy control could be broken by mistake and could lead to serious security and privacy problems. Moreover, the fact that people with different levels of skills and competence interact in educational organizations also leads to the hacking or leaking of personal and institutional data (Kamenskih, 2022 ). AI is based on algorithms and uses large data sets to automate instruction (Araujo et al., 2020 ). Any mistake in the algorithms will create serious problems, and unlike humans, it will repeat the same mistake in making its own decisions. It also increases the threat to institutional and student data security and privacy. The same challenge is coming from the student end. They can be easily victimized as they are not excellently trained to use AI (Asaro, 2019 ). With the increase in the number of users, competence division and distance, safety and privacy concerns increase (Lv and Singh, 2020 ). The consequences depend upon the nature of the attack and the data been leaked or used by the attackers (Vassileva, 2008 ).

The findings show that AI-based products and services are increasing the human laziness factor among those relying more on AI. However, there were not too many studies conducted on this factor by the researcher in the past, but the numerous researchers available in the literature also endorse the findings of this study (Farrow, 2022 ; Bartoletti, 2019 ). AI in education leads to the creation of laziness in humans. AI performs repetitive tasks in an automated manner and does not let humans memorize, use analytical mind skills, or use cognition (Nikita, 2023 ). It leads to an addiction behavior not to use human capabilities, thus making humans lazy. Teachers and students who use AI technology will slowly and gradually lose interest in doing tasks themselves. This is another important concern of AI in the education sector (Crispin Andrews). The teachers and students are getting lazy and losing their decision-making abilities as much of the work is assisted or replaced by AI technology (BARON, 2023 ). Posner and Fei-Fei ( 2020 ) suggested it is time to change AI for education.

The findings also show that the access use of AI will gradually lead to the loss of human decision-making power. The results also endorsed the statement that AI is one of the major causes of the human loss of decision-making power. Several researchers from the past have also found that AI is a major cause responsible for the gradual loss of people’s decision-making (Pomerol, 1997 ; Duan et al., 2019 ; Cukurova et al., 2019 ). AI performs repetitive tasks in an automated manner and does not let humans memorize, use analytical mind skills, or use cognition, leading to the loss of decision-making capabilities (Nikita, 2023 ). An online environment for education can be a good option (VanLangen, 2021 ), but the classroom’s physical environment is the prioritized education mode (Dib and Adamo, 2014 ). In a real environment, there is a significant level of interaction between the teacher and students, which develop the character and civic bases of the students, e.g., students can learn from other students, ask teachers questions, and even feel the education environment. Along with the curriculum, they can learn and adopt many positive understandings (Quinlan et al., 2014 ). They can learn to use their cognitive power to choose options, etc. But unfortunately, the use of AI technology minimizes the real-time physical interaction (Mantello et al., 2021 ) and the education environment between students and teachers, which has a considerable impact on students’ schooling, character, civic responsibility, and their power to make decisions, i.e., use their cognition. AI technology reduces the cognitive power of humans who make their own decisions (Hassani and Unger, 2020 ).

AI technology has undoubtedly transformed or at least affected many fields (IEEE, 2019 ; Al-Ansi and Al-Ansi, 2023 ). Its applications have been developed for the benefit of humankind (Justin and Mizuko, 2017 ). As technology assists employees in many ways, they must be aware of the pros and cons of the technology and must know its applications in a particular field (Nadir et al., 2012 ). Technology and humans are closely connected; the success of one is strongly dependent on the other; therefore, there is a need to ensure the acceptance of technology for human welfare (Ho et al., 2022 ). Many researchers have discussed the user’s perception of a technology (Vazhayil and Shetty, 2019 ), and many have emphasized its legislative and regulatory issues (Khan et al., 2014 ). Therefore, careful selection is necessary to adopt or implement any technology (Ahmad and Shahid, 2015 ). Once imagined in films, AI now runs a significant portion of the technology, i.e., health, transport, space, and business. As AI enters the education sector, it has been affected to a greater extent (Hübner, 2021 ). AI further strengthened its role in education, especially during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and invaded the traditional way of teaching by providing many opportunities to educational institutions, teachers, and students to continue their educational processes (Štrbo, 2020 ; Al-Ansi, 2022 ; Akram et al., 2021 ). AI applications/technology like chatbots, virtual reality, personalized learning systems, social robots, tutoring systems, etc., assist the educational environment in facing modern-day challenges and shape education and learning processes (Schiff, 2021 ). In addition, it is also helping with administrative tasks like admission, grading, curriculum setting, and record-keeping, to name a few (Andreotta and Kirkham, 2021 ). It can be said that AI is likely to affect, enter and shape the educational process on both the institutional and student sides to a greater extent (Xie et al., 2021 ). This phenomenon hosts some questions regarding the ethical concerns of AI technology, its implementation, and its impact on universities, teachers, and students.

The study has similar findings to the report published by the Harvard Kennedy School, where AI concerns like privacy, automation of tasks, and decision-making are discussed. It says that AI is not the solution to government problems but helps enhance efficiency. It is important to note that the report does not deny the role of AI but highlights the issues. Another study says that AI-based and human decisions must be combined for more effective decisions. i.e., the decisions made by AI must be evaluated and checked, and the best will be chosen by humans from the ones recommended by AI (Shrestha et al., 2019 ). The role of AI cannot be ignored in today’s technological world. It assists humans in performing complex tasks, providing solutions to many complex problems, assisting in decision-making, etc. But on the other hand, it is replacing humans, automating tasks, etc., which creates challenges and demands for a solution (Duan et al., 2019 ). People are generally concerned about risks and have conflicting opinions about the fairness and effectiveness of AI decision-making, with broad perspectives altered by individual traits (Araujo et al. 2020 ).

There may be many reasons for these controversial findings, but the cultural factor was considered one of the main factors (Elliott, 2019 ). According to researchers, people with high cultural values have not adopted the AI problem, so this cultural constraint remains a barrier for the AI to influence their behaviors (Di Vaio et al., 2020 ; Mantelero, 2018 ). The other thing is that privacy is a term that has a different meaning from culture to culture (Ho et al., 2022 ). In some cultures, people consider minimal interference in personal life a big privacy issue, while in some cultures, people even ignore these types of things (Mantello et al., 2021 ). The results are similar to Zhang et al. ( 2022 ), Aiken and Epstein ( 2000 ), and Bhbosale et al. ( 2020 ), which focus on the ethical issues of AI in education. These studies show that AI use in education is the reason for laziness among students and teachers. In short, the researchers are divided on the AI concerns in education, just like in other sectors. But they agree on the positive role AI plays in education. AI in education leads to laziness, loss of decision-making capabilities, and security or privacy issues. But all these issues can be minimized if AI is properly implemented, managed, and used in education.

Implications

The research has important implications for technology developers, the organization that adopts the technology, and the policymakers. The study highlights the importance of addressing ethical concerns during AI technology’s development and implementation stage. It also provides guidelines for the government and policymakers regarding the issues arising with AI technology and its implementation in any organization, especially in education. AI can revolutionize the education sector, but it has some potential drawbacks. Implications suggest that we must be aware of the possible impact of AI on laziness, decision-making, privacy, and security and that we should design AI systems that have a very minimal impact.

Managerial Implications

Those associated with the development and use of AI technology in education need to find out the advantages and challenges of AI in this sector and balance these advantages with the challenges of laziness, decision-making, and privacy or security while protecting human creativity and intuition. AI systems should be designed to be transparent and ethical in all manners. Educational organizations should use AI technology to assist their teachers in their routine activities, not to replace them.

Theoretical Implications

A loss of human decision-making capacity is one of the implications of AI in education. Since AI systems are capable of processing enormous amounts of data and producing precise predictions, there is a risk that humans would become overly dependent on AI in making decisions. This may reduce critical thinking and innovation for both students and teachers, which could lower the standard of education. Educators should be aware of how AI influences decision-making processes and must balance the benefits of AI with human intuition and creativity. AI may potentially affect school security. AI systems can track student behavior, identify potential dangers, and identify situations where children might require more help. There are worries that AI could be applied to unjustly target particular student groups or violate students’ privacy. Therefore, educators must be aware of the potential ethical ramifications of AI and design AI systems that prioritize security and privacy for users and educational organizations. AI makes people lazier is another potential impact on education. Teachers and learners may become more dependent on AI systems and lose interest in performing activities or learning new skills or methodologies. This might lead to a decline in educational quality and a lack of personal development among people. Therefore, teachers must be aware of the possible detrimental impacts of AI on learners’ motivation and should create educational environments that motivate them to participate actively in getting an education.

AI can significantly affect the education sector. Though it benefits education and assists in many academic and administrative tasks, its concerns about the loss of decision-making, laziness, and security may not be ignored. It supports decision-making, helps teachers and students perform various tasks, and automates many processes. Slowly and gradually, AI adoption and dependency in the education sector are increasing, which invites these challenges. The results show that using AI in education increases the loss of human decision-making capabilities, makes users lazy by performing and automating the work, and increases security and privacy issues.

Recommendations

The designer’s foremost priority should be ensuring that AI will not cause any ethical concerns in education. Realistically, it is impossible, but at least severe ethical problems (both individual and societal) can be minimized during this phase.

AI technology and applications in education need to be backed by solid and secure algorithms that ensure the technology’s security, privacy, and users.

Bias behavior of AI must be minimized, and issues of loss of human decision-making and laziness must be addressed.

Dependency on AI technology in decision-making must be reduced to a certain level to protect human cognition.

Teachers and students should be given training before using AI technology.

Future work

Research can be conducted to study the other concerns of AI in education which were not studied.

Description and enumeration of the documents under analysis.

Procedure for the analysis of documents. Discourse analysis and categorization.

Similar studies can be conducted in other geographic areas and countries.

Limitations

This study is limited to three basic ethical concerns of AI: loss of decision-making, human laziness, and privacy and security. Several other ethical concerns need to be studied. Other research methodologies can be adopted to make it more general.

Data availability

The data set generated during and/or analyzed during the current study is submitted as supplementary file and can also be obtained from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Change history

29 june 2023.

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The research is funded by the Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur 50250, Malaysia, under the agreement, UniKL/Cori/iccr/04/21.

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The authors confirm their contribution to the paper as follows: Introduction: SFA and HH; Materials: MMA and MKH, MI; Methods: MI and SFA; Data collection: SFA, MMA, MKR, MI, MMA, and AAM; Data analysis and interpretation SFA, HH, MI, and AAM; Draft preparation: MMA, MKR, MI, MMA, and AAM; Writing and review: SFA, HH, MMA, MKR, MI, MMA, and AAM. All authors read, edited, and finalized the manuscript.

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The evaluation survey questionnaire and methodology were examined, approved, and endorsed by the research ethics committee of the University of Gwadar on 1 March 2021 (see supplementary information). The study meets the requirements of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007). The procedures used in this study adhere to the tents of the declaration of Helsinki.

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Ahmad, S.F., Han, H., Alam, M.M. et al. Impact of artificial intelligence on human loss in decision making, laziness and safety in education. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 , 311 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01787-8

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-01787-8

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How Technology Makes Us Lazy Every Day

Technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the last few decades but has simultaneously had some negative effects. We’ve discussed, and continue to discuss different aspects it affects, and often mention not everything is clear-cut. To use this topic as an example, two people can wonder, “is technology making us lazy?” and “is technology relieving us of unnecessary chores?” and both would also conclude different things. We’ll showcase mostly negative effects but know not everything is black and white. With that said, let’s jump straight into how technology makes us lazy.

Table of Contents

How Technology Makes Us Lazy?

Technology makes us lazy by automating tasks that once required manual effort, reducing our physical activity and engagement. It also provides instant access to information, diminishing our need for deep research or critical thinking.

Furthermore, it encourages passive consumption of digital content. This can limit our creativity and problem-solving skills.

These are more ways technology makes us lazy:

1. Acquiring information

The founding of the Internet and its subsequent development and expansion was the primary driving force behind this cause of laziness. Desktop and laptop computers were the primary tools at first. But, the accessibility of smartphones and tablets, which, in the first quarter of 2021, made up 55% of total Internet traffic, has made giant strides. Here are 2 examples of information technology at work:

We examined the effects of technology in education and were astounded. You can not only get a Bachelor’s, but also a Master’s and maybe even Doctor’s degree from your room, on your own dime and time, in your pajamas.

Additionally, when we analyzed technology benefits for teachers , we concluded that daily runs to libraries or bookstores or expensive educational or business trips are now obsolete. Moreover, automatization and bots can replace monotonous, repetitive tasks, eliminating a lot of work we did not so long ago.

When was the last time you purchased a physical newspaper? Even if you have, getting news via your Internet browser or dedicated news apps is a better alternative. Unfortunately, it eliminates the need for physical activities such as going to a newspaper stand or nearest gas station to stay up to date with local and global events.

2. Delivery

Delivery of goods provides another evidence technology makes us lazy:

Online shopping

To shop online, you have to visit a website, find a product, analyze its description, reviews, picture, and price, then add it to the cart. After the total gets deducted from a credit or debit card the ordered items arrive at your doorstep within 1-30 days.

When compared to the time, money, and effort spent on finding, comparing, analyzing, negotiating, and acquiring the same product without technology, you were irrefutably idle. Additionally, robots, AI, and machine learning are taking over the brunt of the workload humans performed in the past, including daily warehouse and shipping operations and system monitoring.

Food is not only making humanity lazier but also more obese, and technology affects every link in the chain. Technological improvements have helped reduce the workload in growing food through agriculture and farming and preparing it for serving or selling in the market. Restaurants, fast-food joints, drive-through windows, and takeaway places also reduce the need to prepare the food before it’s served.

Simply put, there’s no need to run errands or finish daily chores. But at least the workers there work hard, day in and day out. Sadly, that too is about to change. We mentioned robot-arm chefs when we discussed ways technology is replacing jobs in the food industry ( Service headline).

3. Ride-sharing

Transportation technology made our lives easier but required some amount of work. For example, you had to get to the nearest bus station, check the train or airplane schedule, or find a corner with taxi vehicles. Nowadays, you can send a text a minute or two before leaving the house. Apps like Uber , Lyft , or Cabify will connect you to the nearest available driver in a vehicle that fits your group size, and GPS will provide locations both ways.

Furthermore, the introduction of autonomous vehicles, while keeping us safe in traffic and being good for the environment , are one of the most evident indicators technology makes us lazy. You can enter into the vehicle and gaze into the scenery up until you have to leave at the destination.

4. Entertainment

We don’t need to point out the influx of streaming services in recent years, do we? Watching movies on Netflix , HBO Max , Hulu , and using media streaming devices such as Apple TV or Chromecast has almost completely replaced theaters and cinemas. In doing so, it glued viewers to the TVs, computers, and mobile device screen at home.

This made the practice of “binge-watching” normal. And don’t get us started on the gaming industry. It lets us simulate a wide variety of experiences at home, including Virtual Reality (VR). Additionally, in-game winning gives us a sense of accomplishment, making us unmotivated to seek it in real life.

5. Smart homes

Want a clear sign technology makes us lazy? How about no longer having to get up to flick the light switch off? You can do it through your smart device or a remote thanks to smart outlets or smart bulbs. But it went further than that, and dramatically. Today, a variety of modern technology can be controlled remotely or operated without monitoring through the home system.

Some examples include home appliances, LED lights in bulbs and strips, blinds on windows, garage and house doors, audio distribution, and even video uplink for surveillance thousands of miles away. You can even issue voice commands to your home assistant or purchase a smart mirror that never fogs.

6. Social media and communication

While undoubtedly beneficial , direct unrestricted access to someone and his or her whereabouts can bring negative consequences. For example, you can see the location of other people via services such as Facebook Places or Google Latitude , and social media apps such as Snapchat .

Moreover, you can see what friends are listening to on Last.fm , Spotify , check their YouTube subscriptions, view favorite books on Goodreads , or check their plans on Plancast . It’s not hard to see how you’d be lazy to strike up a conversation over text, audio, or video, let alone meeting in person.

7. Marketing/Advertising

In the past, you had to spend thousands of dollars to hire a marketing firm. Or, if you’re the marketer yourself, go door to door or organize conventions or seminars to sell products. Furthermore, you needed a “hustle” mentality, charm, charisma, ability to handle rejection, and skills to recognize the target community.

Nowadays, you can spend a little time setting up an advertisement or pay someone to do it for you. Then, sponsor others or run online ads and have people flocking to you while you sleep.

How to overcome technology-induced laziness?

Although technology is a major contributor to our laziness, we often find ourselves simply giving in instead of actually making any significant changes. Why is that? Is it because technology has become an inseparable part of our lives, and we can’t make do without it? Well, studies show that technologies do have some severe impacts on our social lives.

A recent survey done on Pakistani and Chinese society shows us that almost 69% of people have become lazier due to technological advancement. It also shows that at least 28% of people have some sort of decision-making impairment when it comes to technology. This sentiment is universal, as almost 73% of US citizens believe that while technology has increased their quality of life, it has also made them lazier.

We have included here a few ways that can help you overcome tech-induced laziness. We have also attached a video that raises yet another important question: whether technology is making us dumb. Do watch it:

1. Make a schedule and stick to it

First, and most important of all, accept the fact that technology is here to stay and that you will most likely be using it on a daily basis. Since there is no escaping the inevitable, we have to manage our lives accordingly in hopes of achieving a healthy and sound lifestyle. Which is why scheduling is so important.

In order to escape laziness, you can make a detailed schedule of your day and try to stick to it, giving appropriate time to both technology and other activities.

2. Take a time off of social media

While we can argue about the merits and demerits of social media, it is a fact that it does make us a lot lazier. We often use it to communicate with our family members who are just down the hallway. Oftentimes, we use it to “check on” our friends instead of actually checking in on them. There have been studies about how social media is also fueling mental health issues like depression, anxiety, and isolation, so it is best that one takes a break from it.

3. Engage in physical activities

Another way to counter tech-induced laziness is to become more active. Yes, it sounds like a paradox, as in, if we could become active by will, we wouldn’t be lazy, right? But that is not the case. Technology has made everything convenient, even entertainment.

Before, people used to go out for stuff like picnics, movies, or simply for a nice dinner, but now they have the option of binge-watching while ordering their favorite meal online, delivered to their doorsteps. So yes, by actually going out, we can be much less lazy.

What are the technologies that make us lazy and how?

In the article, we learn how technology makes us lazy and why. We have also covered what to do to escape this phenomenon. It is time we actually take a look at the technologies involved and learn exactly how they impact us to become lazy, and with the help of the following table, which has compiled the different technologies and their impact, we will be attempting to do so:

December 27, 2018

Is Smart Technology Making Us Dumb?

Yes and no: there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the question

By Brett Frischmann

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

We still haven’t grappled with the deep questions Nicholas Carr brought to public attention in his seminal book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2010 ) . Is the internet making us dumb? Is the technology causing us cognitive loss or debilitation? Carr focused on the internet, which is, by design, a dumb technology—a general-purpose digital communication infrastructure that pushed “intelligence” to the ends of the network.

Since my own book Re-Engineering Humanity , co-authored by Evan Sellinger, was published, I’m often asked: Is smart technology making us dumb? My first reaction is to bounce a few questions back. Can technology really be smart? Is your question whether our use of certain technologies is making us dumb? Or is your question about technology companies?

Eventually, I return to the original question and respond like a lawyer: It depends. It’s yes, in some ways and no in others. Before addressing it, we must acknowledge the conceptual mistake of boiling intelligence down to a binary—smart versus dumb—as if it exists on a single dimension. There are many different types of intelligence that matter, and how technology affects different types also varies considerably.

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Once I’m done meandering, however I answer yes. I believe we may be making ourselves dumber when we outsource thinking and rely on supposedly smart tech to micromanage our daily lives for the sake of cheap convenience.

The internet provides us with seemingly limitless data, prose, images, video and other raw materials that could in theory enhance our intelligence and enable us to become more knowledgeable, to be more skillful or to otherwise use actionable intelligence. Maybe we could improve our decision-making, reflect on our beliefs, interrogate our own biases, and so on.

But do we? Who does? Who exactly is made smarter? And how? And with respect to what? Are you and I, and our siblings and children, engaging with the seemingly limitless raw materials in a manner that makes us more capable, more intelligent? Or do we find ourselves outsourcing more and more? Do we find ourselves mindlessly following scripts written or designed by others?

We’re easily led to believe that we’re extending our minds and becoming more intelligent with a little help from the digital tech tools, when in reality, those are often just illusions, sales pitches optimized to pave the path of least resistance. Every time someone suggests they’ve extended their mind with their smartphone, that they are thinking through and with their phones, I respond by asking them about who’s doing what thinking.

Are they extending their mind or extending the reach of others into their mind? When you rely on GPS, who’s doing the route planning? Who is gaining what intelligence? Are you smarter because of GPS? What impact does outsourcing navigation and awareness of your surroundings have on your capabilities? Certainly, Waze or Google gain intelligence about you, your surroundings and even others around you. That could be good or bad, but it’s not really extending your mind or expanding your intelligence.

As everyone knows by now, many digital tech companies know a lot about each of us. Advertisers, Cambridge Analytica–like firms, large platforms and so on. They’ve gained considerable intelligence and, as a result, power. But note that for the most part, they feed on different raw materials. They don’t get smart by consuming the same materials that we’re fed.

They gain actionable intelligence by collecting treasure troves of data, gleaned from digital networked technologies. Everything that occurs on the internet—every interaction, transaction, communication, etc.—everything is data, strings of 0s and 1s. And all of our activities generate data. Digital tech companies gain actionable intelligence by collecting and processing data, mostly about how we behave in response to different stimuli—what we’re fed. This empowers those companies. They may, for example, personalize their services to induce desirable behaviors, such as sustained engagement. Or they may develop new salable insights about consumers. I could go on. But the bottom line is that digital tech companies get smarter, more capable, more powerful.

But what about you and me? Do we also get smarter? Do we extend our minds and thereby gain intelligence and increased capabilities? What actual capabilities are extended or enhanced? Are they in fact practiced? If so, to what end? What actionable intelligence improves the quality of your life?

Upon reflection, I remain uncertain. Again, the lawyer in me emerges, and I can reach no definitive evaluation. Does that say something about me and my reflective capacity, the ambiguity of empirical evidence, or something else?

The internet promised the library of Alexandria at our fingertips, delivered instantaneously wherever and whenever we like. It delivered that and much, much more. One might describe the exchange in Faustian terms, as trading one’s soul for knowledge. Putting aside concerns about what’s been lost (our soul, humanity, etc.), it’s not even clear that the promised knowledge was delivered. To make matters worse, evaluating the Faustian bargain is even more difficult when the intellectual capabilities required to do so seem to be waning, at least for many of us.

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Technology Makes Man Lazy (Essay Sample)

Technology makes man lazy.

When almost everything can be done through technology, what else is there to do but depend on it even more often despite disastrous results? One of the worst effects of technology on humanity is laziness. By laziness, this refers to being lazy in doing, thinking, and interacting. Technology has made life easier indeed but the major drawback is the creation of a new generation that spawns succeeding generations of lethargic individuals. As technology dominates modern societies, people have become lazy physically, socially, and mentally.

Technology removes many physical activities which result in laziness. First, driving makes it easy to move around but also reduces walking and other related activities. Many would ride their cars to send their children to school or go to work instead of walking or biking. No wonder then that obesity and overweight incidence continue to rise! Second, appliances and devices decrease physical activity too while increasing screen time. For example, since people can use their washing machines to wash their clothes, gone are the days of instant strength training when they used to carry pails and heavy laundry to and from water sources. Nowadays, when people wash their clothes, they watch TV, fiddle with their phones, and/or eat- all of which are activities that lack physical movement. At the same time, many children are becoming overweight or obese due to hours spent being glued to tablets, smartphones, and laptops. They have lost their interest in going to the park and playing sports because they can easily play online or video games. Technology increases laziness and diminishes physical actions that are crucial to a healthy and strong physical development from childhood to adulthood.

Besides the physical drawback, technology distances people from each other which make them lazy in giving the required effort to maintain quality human relationships. First, many individuals depend on technology to manage their relationships for them. For instance, some parents simply give electronic gadgets like tablets and smartphones to their kids in order to keep the latter busy. In other words, they are letting technology do the parenting instead of them! The usual negative effect is that parents fail to know who their children as they develop, creating communication and discipline problems along the way. Second, the youth depend too much on technology to shape their relationships. A good illustration is how many Millennials use the social media to make and maintain friendships. The consequence is that sometimes, by depending on social media too much, they have ill-developed face-to-face interpersonal skills that can lead to failures in reading and responding to verbal and written as well as non-verbal expressions of others. Third, couples rely on technology to communicate in short words instead of giving time for meaningful conversations. They express themselves briefly which may lack the required content to make themselves understood to their partners, possibly producing communication breakdowns.

Technology also makes people lazy by depending on it more than they should including thinking critically about information. Social media which is full of false news has been the go-to news outlet for many people. As a result, they tend to select sites that mirror what they believe in or are inclined to believe in, producing an in-breeding of beliefs that fail to hone critical thinking. In addition, people scan for information without digesting it properly. They read and believe almost everything, especially that which confirms their existing values and assumptions. Technology is an insufficient tool for helping people think critically of information.

Laziness has increased and will continue to do so because of technology. By making it the center of their lives, many people shall suffer from bad health as well as poor relationships and low-quality thinking. People using technology too much and indiscriminately should reflect on these disadvantages because laziness harms them in too many ways.

Essay on Are Modern Gadgets Making Us Lazy

Fresh Reads

Wheel was among the first human inventions to cut down the human labour. Since then, men’s curiosity and meticulous efforts have helped him for new inventions and discoveries in every field. In today’s modern age of technology, new gadgets or gizmos are being introduced almost each day to make our lives simple. But in this rage of making life simpler, gone are the days when the built and strength of a human body was comparable or in some way more than that of the strongest animals. Modern gadgets are indeed making the human kind lazy and more disease prone.

A gadget is a device or appliance having a unique purpose and function. Right from the time we open our eyes in the morning, till the time we sleep, we use endless number of gadgets. Such is the way these have entered in our lives that nowadays, human beings cannot do a simple work without taking help of a gadget. No one wants to go back to the days when there was no television, no washing machines and certainly, no mobile phones. True, modern gizmos have made our lives better, but it can also ruin our lives if we allow them to.

Instead of running or jogging in fresh air, today people prefer to run on a treadmill. The joy of getting soiled in playground during football session has been taken over by joysticks of playstations. Walking a short distance to meet a friend or to buy things from grocery stores have been replaced by use of big sedan cars. Most of the field research has been taken over by a click of a button. Libraries are losing their identity.

Nutrient-rich diet has been replaced by tinned, canned or preserved food. All these things have one thing in common: mellowing down the labour done by man. Besides physical laziness, modern gadgets have also led to mental laziness.

Today’s so called ‘smart generation’ seems to be oblivious of the disability rendered by these gadgets. Even for simple calculations, one cannot do without using a calculator. Instead of engaging in physical activities, one would prefer to spend long hours sitting comfortably on the couch watching television. Social media has made communication so easy that one doesn’t feel the need to actually speak to a person.

The shortcuts of communicating through networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have done away with our traditional social obligations. All the household chores are now done by gizmos or machines be it washing clothes or utensils. Infact the day is not far when all the household work will be done by robots or machines and people will have more time to do nothing and become more lazy.

In the past, children and young people utilised their free time by reading books, socialising, or engaging in active or creative play. A fixation on gadgets reduces participation in all of these, especially the aspect of creativity. Digital worlds can be vast, but they are always structured, not requiring the imagination and inventiveness of unstructured play. Some children become less creative and less able to entertain themselves. Their minds become numbed by the constant onslaught of varied and useless information.

Also most of the people are unaware of the fact that almost all the modern gadgets powered by electric, electronic or battery sources produce electromagnetic field or EMF. According to the scientists, radiations from the EMFs can be disruptive to the human body. Like X-rays these waves are not blocked or weakened by objects in their way. These radiations are emitted from most of the things like laptops, computers, mobile phones, electronic or battery employing toys causing headaches, tiredness or even immune system disorders. Additionally a recent study by a Finnish scientist found a 40% increase in the risks of brain tumour for those who use mobile phones extensively for more than 10 years.

Evidently human being are becoming addictive to these modern gizmos. All the adults as well as toddlers need therapy to kick the habit and get their lives back. To sum up, although, the countless advantages of modern technology can’t be denied, we should exercise moderation to avoid countless disadvantages of our cherished gadgets.

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Is AI making us lazy?

Some believe automation is making us work-shy, but others believe the benefits outweigh the potential risks

A man asleep at his desk with sticky notes over his eyes that have eyes drawn on them

This article originally appeared in the April edition of IT Pro 20/20, available here . To sign up to receive each new issue in your inbox, click here .

Artificial intelligence (AI) is now part of our everyday lives. Many of us now wake up to our lights turning on automatically with the temperature of our home set just how we like it, and that's before we begin interacting with tools such as digital assistants and IoT doorbells, and even automation-powered services that write our emails for us .

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, automation technologies have also become more widely used in the enterprise too. Some 73% of organisations worldwide are now using automation technologies, two-thirds of business leaders used automation to respond to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and a quarter of workers have seen a change to their role and ways of working because of the implementation of these technologies, according to research from Deloitte on robotic and intelligent automation.

However, while we've long heard about the benefits of AI for businesses, from the fact that it can enable companies to save time and money by automating and optimising routine processes and tasks as well as increase productivity and operational efficiencies, some believe the technology could be making us lazy.

Dumbing it down

In 2015, Nigel Barber PhD, a biopsychologist and author, wrote in Psychology Today that much like how after the Industrial Revolution people became less physically active and began to gain weight as machines replaced manual workers, reliance on automation could make people less intelligent.

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"AI is embedded in many features of modern life for the simple reason that intelligent machines can already outperform humans, including some aptitudes where there was once thought to be a human advantage, such as playing chess or recalling trivia in a game of Jeopardy," he said. "In the future, the electronic assistant will develop to the point that it serves similar functions as a real living butler, fulfilling requests such as: 'Organize a dinner party for six on Thursday, Jeeves, and invite the usual suspects."

"At that point, our long struggle with challenging technologies is at an end. We can take it easy knowing that the hard work of planning and organising is being done by a better brain – the electronic assistant. Starved of mental effort, our brains will regress. The future is an aristocratic fog."

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Professor Stefano Puntoni , professor of Marketing at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University (RSM), has also researched how new technology is changing consumption and society and has subsequently warned of the dangers an overreliance on automation can have on humans.

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First, he warns, is the risk of deterioration of professional skills that heavy reliance on automation can cause. "For example, most famously, in 2009 an Air France plane crashed into the Atlantic en-route from Brazil to France," Putoni tells IT Pro . "The cause of the tragedy was the pilot's inappropriate response following the disengagement of the autopilot system during a storm.

"Second, we need to avoid becoming complacent. In many situations, human supervision and vigilance remain crucial to ensure all runs smoothly and to step in where necessary to avoid error. For example, the first death in an accident involving the Tesla autonomous driving system was due to a combination of the system mistaking a white truck for the sky and the driver's complete lack of attention."

Putoni also warns that even when tragedy is not involved, AI technologies can create discomfort when it prevents individuals from exerting effort and practising skills that they care about.

"For example, we show that people for whom cooking is an important part of their identity tend to dislike an automated cooking machine when this is presented with the purpose of taking over the cooking responsibilities completely," he adds. "However people's responses became less negative when the same product was presented as still enabling the user's involvement, allowing collaboration between people and technology. Sometimes more automation is not better."

Work-shy AI

Some believe, too, that AI has the potential to make us lazy in the workplace – particularly if the implementation of the technology isn't well thought out.

Jeet Mukerji, lead AI product manager at Beamery, tells IT Pro : "AI has the potential to make us lazy in the workplace if we agree on three things. The first is that the original work, now done by AI, is worth mastering by humans. We choose to not do this, however, so will eventually lose this skill set – empathising, or doing mental maths, for example.

"Secondly, we choose to consistently spend the time and energy, freed up by AI, in lower value moments such as deciding to scroll social media without an aim rather than read a book or to learn a new skill.

"Finally, we choose to not understand the limits of AI we are using, expect too much of it, shirk our responsibility fully on it and don't engage the outputs of the AI correctly – by this I mean we think it is incapable of error, so don't sense check the outputs."

Machine learning vs AI vs NLP: What are the differences?

Mukerji believes that we can prevent AI from making us lazy, but to do so we need to make the right choices: We need to understand the technology's limitations by engaging with it correctly and be proactive and curious enough to learn how to improve and add further value.

"A further important point here is that this has nothing to do with AI, but is more focused on general training on how to be a productive human," Mukerji adds.

AI don't agree

Others, however, believe that AI is not making us lazy and suggest it's having the opposite effect: Giving us more headspace to spend on productive and enjoyable tasks at work.

James Coombes, CEO of vector.ai, an AI startup for enterprise operations, tells IT Pro : "It's still surprising today that employees continue to manually reconcile and organise documents and email communications. It's a waste of human talent. The good news is this is a problem AI can solve. There is so much value to be had by adding an intelligent layer that can do the more basic cognitive tasks and give us all our headspace back.

"By automating monotonous tasks like 'answer that email', 'key in that data' and 'find that piece of information', employees can spend their time on delivering great customer service, learning new skills, increasing business development and pursuing passion projects. Not only will this lead to a better and more profitable business but a happy workforce freed from process pain."

This is a viewpoint shared by Rachel Roumeliotis, vice president of Data and AI at O'Reilly, an online learning platform focussing on digital skills, who tells IT Pro that AI will only make us lazy if businesses use it in a lazy way. She says that if the technology is used correctly, it should allow people to be more creative and use their time doing tasks that can make a palpable difference to the business.

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"For example, AI can be used to take on the burden of repetitive, administrative tasks, such as reporting. This is work which is often necessary, but which can take a long time and is more of a tick-box exercise than anything else," she says. "The onus, however, is then on businesses to encourage and enable their employees to replace that work with something more engaging and strategic.

"In some instances, this will be easy for businesses. Those hours spent on administrative tasks can be replaced by brainstorms or extra hours of content production. For others, it might require some restructuring of the business. Either way, training should be at the very heart of it. The time saved on performing admin tasks can instead be used by employees to learn new skills and impact the business in a new, innovative way.

"AI shouldn't be making us lazier, it should be enabling greater creativity and a greater sense of fulfilment within work."

Dr Lindsey Zuloaga, chief data scientist at HireVue, also believes that the benefits of utilising AI in the workplace far outweigh the potential downsides – particularly as a result of the COVID pandemic, which has caused workers to suffer from increased workloads and depleted resources over the past 12 months.

"In hiring, for example, recruiters are able to spend less time on scheduling and more time on candidate engagement and personalised interactions, as well as streamlining communication between recruiters, hiring teams and candidates," she tells IT Pro .

"All of these elements facilitate a faster turnaround time for new hires. This is far from laziness, but a modern way of driving efficiency and focusing your staff's time on tasks that hold greater value."

Carly Page is a freelance technology journalist, editor and copywriter specialising in cyber security, B2B, and consumer technology. She has more than a decade of experience in the industry and has written for a range of publications including Forbes, IT Pro, the Metro, TechRadar, TechCrunch, TES, and WIRED, as well as offering copywriting and consultancy services.

Prior to entering the weird and wonderful world of freelance journalism, Carly served as editor of tech tabloid The INQUIRER from 2012 and 2019. She is also a graduate of the University of Lincoln, where she earned a degree in journalism.

You can check out Carly's ramblings (and her dog) on Twitter , or email her at [email protected] .

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Technology Doesn’t Make Us Lazy – Here’s Why

Whether we like it or not, technology is a part of our daily lives. Most people’s concerns are how technology influences our laziness and does it make us lazy at all.

This rapid improvement brings up the question: Is technology making people lazy, or is this just a myth?

Typically, most of the technological advancements made us more efficient rather than lazy. Technology opens up new possibilities where hard workers become more efficient and lazy people become even lazier. It all depends on the individual’s mindset and how you look at things.

Even though it can sometimes be distracting rather than useful, we should be grateful for it.

I must admit that there are times when technology makes me a little bit lazier and keeps me occupied with unnecessary things, but overall it has made my life a lot easier than before. Easy access to information, quick transport, gadgets, and online jobs, have all made our lives easier and less time-consuming.

If you feel like technology is making you lazier, we recommend reading our free guide on how to stop being lazy and create an action plan.

I guess we can make two assumptions, one where technology makes us lazy and one where it makes us more efficient. These are the two questions that confuse people. Let’s get more deep into both of these questions.

Has Technology Made Society Lazier Or More Efficient In Practice?

We have to state the fact that technology complements your mindset. If you don’t have good habits, discipline, and motivation to improve your life, you will look at technology as an excuse. There is a whole industry dedicated to this target group and basically exists because of people’s laziness.

On the other hand, most of the time it is used for good reasons and creates huge progress in society. Technological advancements in medicine prolong our life span and engineers are creating new inventions that could make our life a lot easier.

Just imagine our lives if we never had electricity, cars, phones, printing presses, vaccines, etc. We are used to taking things for granted and not give them greater importance in our daily lives. Modern levels of technology vastly impact future inventions that can potentially solve many problems like climate change, world hunger, poverty , etc.

But no matter what happens some people will look at the improvement of technology as a bad thing. They will try to justify their laziness due to its vast improvement, no matter what era it is.

When we compare today’s society with the one 60 years ago, we can realize that there hasn’t been too much of a difference in terms of laziness and procrastination . I know that elder generations like to critique new ones and act like they were working 24/7, but I can assure you that wasn’t the case.

Our brains love to be occupied with distractions, so no matter what kind of technology we have it will always find a way to amuse himself. In the 60s people didn’t have iPhones and computers, but they were always watching baseball games and golf. Over time distractions just changed from physical to digital and that shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

If we take a look at the statistics from Google trends, we can see that from 2004 to 2020 the interest for working out has increased by more than 300%. Which further proves my point that technology doesn’t make us lazy.

I know that these numbers aren’t that accurate because they are searches on google and not real-life examples, but it surely means that people are more active today than in 2004. Bigger the interest, the bigger probability of being active.

Some Exceptions Where Technology Made Us Lazier

Technology can create distractions. Back in the day watching TV was the biggest distraction and now it evolved into YouTube and Netflix . These services allowed us to find an enormous amount of entertainment without lifting a finger. These distractions release an enormous amount of dopamine which makes them quite addictive.

Check out our article on how watching TV makes you lazy .

These addictions are hard to quit and that’s why many people think that technology makes them lazy.

Another great example where technology is making us lazy is through video games . On average, gamers spend more than 6 hours of gaming every day, while only 1% of them are doing it professionally. This type of behavior is really common among students and children, which directly impacts their grades.

As I already mentioned, video games create a lot of dopamine and that excess dopamine makes other activities like reading a book or studying look boring. I now understand why some parents think that technology is making their kids more stupid and lazy.

Mobile phones and social media also contribute to people’s laziness. Nowadays, we can’t even imagine our lives without our phones. Constant notifications distract us from doing our daily activities, but we still decide to stare at our phones. Luckily, most of us know how to manage our time spent on phones, but there will always be some exceptions that cannot control themselves.

The rise of online services like Amazon and eBay enabled us to skip shopping and do everything from our homes. Even though I look at this as a blessing in disguise, simply because there are too many responsibilities for me, a lot of people just encourage their laziness with this type of behavior.

Practical Examples Where Technology Makes Us Efficient

Let’s start off by saying that technology provides easy access to information. So many social media options, email platforms, websites, online dictionaries, encyclopedias, and many more things made us more efficient. Long gone are the days where we have to go to the library to search for books and studies, now we have access to all that in a blink of a second.

Secondly, technological improvements created modern medicine . Medical technologies are constantly evolving where even robots are capable of doing surgical incisions with extreme precision. It’s safe to say that modern technology prolongs our life span.

Thirdly, athletes can improve their skills a lot faster thanks to modern technology. For example, if you wanted to shoot 200 jump shots it would take you at least 1 hour without any help, but today with the right equipment you shoot the same amount in less than 15 minutes. Of course, there are many other ways where technology helps athletes, but we are not gonna cover all of them right now.

Fourhtly, modern technology protects the environment by improving solar panels and recycling processes. Our world is facing some serious problems with pollution, so technological improvements are necessary. Creating machines that don’t polute as much while still being efficient is the main priority and we have seen some great progress over the years.

Lastly, we have to mention the fact that the transport is regulated a lot better, we can hire people online without wasting too much time, GPS systems, safety cameras are all around us and most importantly electric cars are now the new reality.

Final Words

No matter what kind of technology influences our lives, we should always strive to be the best version of our self. You can either decide to use the full potential of technological improvements to create a better life for yourself or you can use it as an excuse for making you lazy.

Nikola Stavrovski

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