Convenience Kills Creativity The Hidden Cost Of Chatbot Dependency

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Letter to Editor
In this era of chatbots, the old adage ‘practice makes a man perfect’ is more than a proverb. Driving on the same road on a regular basis makes us skilled to the extent that driving the
same route is possible without much active attention.
Taking a turn or stopping at a signal becomes more spontaneous than it was during the first few days of driving on the same route. As if the brain is capable of deciding spontaneously without much active attention from us.
In fact, engaging the brain repeatedly in actions makes the brain more efficient. A phenomenon called neuroplasticity allows the brain to change and form new neural connections in response to experience and training.
Here lies the urgency to reduce dependency on using chatbots in academia to do the creative part of thinking for us. Ironically, we find it convenient and efficient to use chatbots to write from a conventional email to a complex document.
We use chatbots to analyze data or to generate a research proposal. Albeit the end result is superb. Against the backdrop of this superb “creative” output, our brain remains inactive without any synaptic ignition – neural communication.
From the perspective of neuroplasticity, engaging the brain is vital to evolving the creative cognitive ability. Just as writing and reading aloud help synaptic ignition, thinking does in a similar manner to activate the brain’s potential for creative cognitive exercise.
Dependency on chatbots, on the other hand, whether for composing a simple email or a complex document, not only blocks the brain from evolving but also turns the brain into a rusty grey
matter incapable of creative cognitive exercise.
A recent study conducted at MIT concluded that using ChatGPT to help write essays can lead to “cognitive debt” and a “likely decrease in learning skills” as it has been previously argued that use of AI might have an impact of a widespread “dumbing down”, or decline in the critical thinking ability.
However, access and convenience to perform a task with an immediate, almost flawless output make it nearly impossible to resist using chatbots at every level or for any kind of task
in academia. Teachers and lecturers prepare lecture notes and questions using chatbots.
Students prepare assignments, write reports, and a thesis using chatbots. Moreover, during the open-book exams, students bring answers to potential questions prepared by AI-assisted
chatbots.
Hence, schools, colleges, and universities are forced to adopt policies for the permissible use of chatbots for the learners and educators. With minor variations, permission to allow
chatbots is mostly prohibited in writing assignments, theses, and reports.
Generally, lecturers and teachers have more freedom to use chatbots than students. The favor for the teachers and lecturers is primarily based on the argument that they know
how to use chatbots more appropriately.
Technically speaking, using AI-assisted writing tools such as Grammarly can also stop one from learning how to write correctly, unless the author carefully reviews and comprehends the suggested edits.
At administrative layers, the employers are also happy with more efficient outputs by the officers and clerks who use chatbots to prepare administrative documents.
Taken together, a vital question arises on how to determine the threshold beyond which any AI-assisted tools should not be permissible in academia or more importantly, will not reduce the synaptic ignition.
Given the circumstances, using AI tools to perform academic tasks is unavoidable. At the same time, everyone must master using AI tools.
Merely some guidelines to identify where AI tools are permissible for the sake of assessments of performance would not suffice to achieve the goal of creating new generations with creative cognitive skills in the digital era of chatbots.
Finding the way to use AI-assisted tools without compromising synaptic ignition for evolving cognitive skills remains a challenge.
In every academic programs, offering a selected
number of courses or a major part of every course in conventional manner, i.e, all activities of teaching, learning and assessments without any AI-assisted tools could be an option.
Or else, behind the curtain of frequent use of chatbots, we might be missing the double- edged sword of using them.
The dependency on chatbots that results in a decreasing synaptic ignition not only making our cognitive skills being replaced by AI, it also paves the way for AI to physically replace us from our job.
Prof Mohammad Tariqur Rahman is the Deputy Executive Director (Development, Research & Innovation) at International Institute of Public Policy and Management (INPUMA), Universiti Malaya.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of  MMKtT.
- Focus Malaysia.

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