Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-9-2026
Abstract
As artificial intelligence (AI) systems proliferate across professional and everyday contexts, humans increasingly rely on these tools to perform cognitive tasks they once carried out internally. This phenomenon of cognitive offloading extends beyond the use of traditional aids like calendars or calculators, raising foundational questions about how deep reliance on AI reshapes human cognition itself (Risko & Gilbert, 2016). While offloading can enhance immediate task performance, emerging evidence suggests meaningful costs to memory retention, judgment quality, and creative autonomy (Burnett & Richmond, 2025; Risko et al., 2023). Drawing on seminal work by Cliff Nass and colleagues on media multitasking, task-switching, and frontal lobe degradation, this paper situates AI-assisted cognition within a broader tradition of technology-mediated cognitive disruption. Over-delegation to AI threatens not only individual skill development but also organizational capacity, as both novices and experts may depend on AI output without adequate scrutiny, potentially leading to cognitive atrophy. This paper offers four high-impact research questions to guide an interdisciplinary scientific program spanning cognitive science, human-computer interaction (HCI), and organizational behavior, arguing that AI must be designed to augment, not erode, human cognitive capability.