As AI replaces more and more tasks that we humans are reluctant to do ourselves, there's more of a risk that it is replacing our essential creative thinking process and our ability to analyse, create beautiful things, write and assess a problem before presenting solutions.
When our brains don't use these skills, they start to decline. Then there's the risk of our brains believing AI hallucinations and factual incorrectness. AI agents don't know what is true – they simply give you likely phrases and wording based on patterns and data they have been trained on. In a 2024 study focusing on AI use among university students, greater AI use was linked to reduced academic performance, greater memory loss and increased procrastination. It was found that using AI tools to write essays and papers, and to cheat on exams, undermined key human skills like decision-making and creativity.
Creative atrophy has been likened to muscle loss within the body and cognitive atrophy. It occurs when original thought pathways get weaker from lack of use. This leads to average-quality thought generation and an inability to generate critical thinking and original thoughts without the assistance of AI. In other words, your brain 'goes blank'. As a result, there's a stronger reliance on AI to generate concepts, brainstorm or create ideas, rather than letting your brain form these things naturally. In the case of writing, those who let AI continually create first drafts of their work (rather than writing it from scratch), risk losing the ability to write naturally. Those who rely on AI for research or for memory-based tasks also risk losing their ability to recall concepts, ideas and skills more quickly and easily.
What are the symptoms of creative atrophy?
The symptoms of creative atrophy include dwindling curiosity, a reduction in an ability to generate new and innovative concepts and ideas, and problems in resolving issues creatively. Someone displaying symptoms may feel stuck in a rut creatively, and may also display a lack of interest in learning new concepts. They may even start to avoid the questioning of different perspectives and ideas, or have problems adapting to new perspectives and information.
Another key feature of creative atrophy is the continued feeling of being uninspired and lethargic, and disinterested in creative activities. There may also be a strong urge to use AI only after just a minute of working the brain to produce something creative. This is because AI cuts off our brain's need to conduct divergent thinking, (when we create multiple solutions to a single problem). Processes that once involved a lot of brainstorming, sticky notes, notepads, changing direction and rough drafts now only involve a prompt and the acceptance of whatever an AI can quickly turn out, without questioning its integrity.
AI's impact on critical thinking
A 2025 study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab studied 54 people between the ages of 18 and 39, placing the participants into three groups. The first was asked to write SAT essays using ChatGPT, while the second was asked to write the essays using Google's search engine. The third was asked to produce the essay with nothing at all but their own brain. Researchers used an EEG to record participants' brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users 'consistently underperformed at linguistic, neural and behavioural levels'. It was noted that across several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, even getting to the copy-and-paste stage by the end of the study.
The paper suggests that continually using AI could actually harm learning and brain output, especially for younger users. While the paper is yet to be peer reviewed and has a small sample size, it points to findings that when it comes to AI, brain process and development may be sacrificed at the expense of convenience and expediting tasks.
By contrast, the brain-only group that didn't use either Google or ChatGPT showed the highest neutral connectivity in alpha, theta and delta bands, which are connected to memory, processing, artistry and idea creation. Researchers also discovered that this group was more curious, focused, and engaged and subsequently more content with their completed essays.
Get your brain back
So, how do we get our brains thinking again so we prevent creative atrophy? The goal isn't to stop using AI entirely, but to reclaim the ability to think for ourselves. Rather than turning to AI immediately for answers to questions, original thinking and idea creation need to be prioritised. Here are a few ways you can get those 'deep thinking' juices flowing once again!
30 minutes of deep thinking
Before even touching AI, aim to devote at least half an hour to critical and creative thought processes. Take a pen and paper, notepad, sticky notes or even a napkin and get scribbling down your ideas, along with solutions, problems, challenges, risks, positives, negatives and so on. Try to see the topic from each and every angle. Avoid the temptation to simply open a ChatGPT window and creating a prompt. Just like your body needs a warm up before exercise, you need to kickstart your brain and nervous system. Sketching and writing by hand has even been known to open up the neural pathways between your hands and brain. By putting pen to paper in this way, your brain is working through problems in analogue, which means that you'll have a stronger sense of pride and ownership over your work. If you do have to use AI, use it to refine and expand your thoughts rather than replacing them.
Use AI as a work critic
Use AI carefully and avoid the temptation to just allow it to give you answers. Let it challenge your thoughts and assumptions and critique your work. AI can also train you to be better at finding answers if you prompt it to. Ask it what you're missing, but don't request that it does the work for you. Let it explain its reasoning and the 'why'. This will force you to refine and produce better work on your own merit, while giving AI greater value and a better role in improving human-created content.
Question AI's output
Many people just take AI's output without question. Remember that it has the power to produce hallucinations and errors. Put your brain into editor and fact-checker mode and run through every output it creates. Remind yourself that your brain is more powerful and keep criticizing and questioning what AI turns out. Also consider whether you even need AI at all. Does it really improve the material you are producing? Is it only making things quicker rather than smarter? If using AI as a tool helps to enhance your thinking process, it's worth using. If you're not gaining anything but outsourcing your brain's powerful potential, it's time for a literal re-think.
