Think again: reclaiming our ‘cognitive debt’ from AI

It is a universal truth that contemporary academia has entered an age of unparalleled intellectual complacency. We are witnessing the mass surrender of individuality and critical thinking in favour of artificial intelligence (AI) generated responses. This moment calls on educators to look back at some of the traditional foundations of education – and to rethink how we read, write, debate and think.

Never before have our students been so diluted within the aggregated voice of the machine, or their independent thought been so readily discarded. Our intrinsic, human capacity for learning is being subsumed by prediction, where personal articulation becomes statistical residue.  

What began as a call to use AI responsibly has metastasised into a disengagement pandemic, as AI supercharges students’ uninterest and faculty disinvestment from teaching. Too much reliance on AI tools carries a hidden neurological cost, as demonstrated in a 2025 MIT Media Lab study. Researchers observed a significant drop in brain activity, particularly in memory, attention and problem-solving, among those using AI, compared with those working without the assistance of AI. This “cognitive debt” results in a gradual erosion of mental engagement and a measurable decline in critical thinking. 

While traditional models of education (bluebooks, in-class essays, and oral examinations) once trained students to wrestle with uncertainty, their contemporary equivalents (take-home tasks and online submissions) encourage the pursuit of immediate answers and conclusions. As thinking becomes more readily outsourced to AI tutors, the habits of reading deeply – of dwelling in words and engaging earnestly with the perspectives of others – will fade, and with them, the discipline which nurtures true understanding.

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To reclaim the integrity of critical thinking, educators must shift back to traditional models of education and reconsider how our learning starts with reading. Hence, I propose the following approach:

Reading-to-write

Comparable to how in-class essays and oral examinations demand that students demonstrate knowledge in real time, the habit of active reading requires a similar immediacy and presence by moving away from mediated or secondary forms of engagement that AI provides. To truly read actively and develop the habit of writing, one must adhere to the slow, deliberate process of wrestling with ideas, weighing evidence and forming conclusions through sustained attention. After a decade of teaching the case study method, I think it is a powerful tool for supporting a reading-to-write approach. I recommend preparing students in the following ways:

• Pre-class preparation: as part of the reading assignment, assign a set of questions and ask students to prepare draft answers for class discussion.
• Analytical engagement: explain in advance that the drafts need to show critical engagement with the case through careful reading, understanding the problem context and identifying the challenges.
• Structured thinking: draft responses should reflect reasoning by proposing decision alternatives, using concepts, theory and evidence from the case.

Since this approach requires visible preparation, students must confront real-world problems and immerse themselves in the case. Contextual nuance challenges students to reconstruct viewpoints that LLMs often miss. It nudges students toward metacognition – thinking about how they think. In doing so, it widens the scope of enquiry and opens space for multiple interpretations and possibilities.

Writing-to-debate 

If reading-to-write restores attention, then writing-to-debate restores risk. By engaging in writing aimed at debate, students can transform the act of putting pen to paper into an intellectual commitment that demands their brains take ownership of arguments, anticipate resistance and accept uncertainty. This process develops the judgement and rhetorical awareness that are essential for critical thinking. Contrary to AI-generated prose, which offers polished finality, debate-oriented writing exposes the limits of understanding. It forces revision through confrontation, as students recognise that their ideas will be questioned aloud. Borrowed thinking collapses under the scrutiny of debate, exposing whether a student truly understands an argument. So by positioning the writing as an act of preparation for intellectual encounter rather than as an “exercise” to complete, this method counters AI’s tendency to produce superficial responses. Educators can prepare students for case debates through writing, as follows.

• Role playing: encourage students to assume the role of the case protagonist when preparing their written responses.

• Argumentation: through debate, invite students to propose and defend an alternative, seek feedback from their peers and critically examine alternative viewpoints.

Debating-to-think 

By engaging in debate, students consolidate knowledge and sharpen their thinking by subjecting ideas to resistance. Debate forces weak assumptions to collapse and stronger, hard-won insights to emerge. Debate restores humility to learning, reminding students that understanding is provisional and earned, and not delivered fully formed. I suggest the following ways for educators to practise this:

• Diverse perspectives: facilitate discussion that draws on diverse cultural and contextual perspectives to promote deeper analysis.
• Embrace uncertainty: create space for students to think through situations characterised by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, being explicit that there is no single correct answer.

Debate pushes students to think about their reasoning, respond to counter-argument, and adjust their conclusions in real time. Borrowed ideas rarely survive that test. It recognises that understanding is shaped through dialogue and subject to constant change. 

As educators, our task is not just to preserve human intelligence but to advance it. Reading closely, writing originally, debating with logic and thinking critically are the very foundations of education. The case study method might be a way to embrace this foundation, as it places students in a real-life problem, where context matters and judgement is earned. In the process, it pushes back against the drift toward “cheap intelligence”, and brings back the classic ecosystem of learning in which students grow through confusion, mistakes and failure.

Shahriar Akter is a professor and the deputy dean of research at the Faculty of Arts, Society and Business, University of Wollongong, Australia. 

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