Does AI promote human creativity or encourage social loafing?

AI has the potential to allow people to focus more on creative work. However, depending on AI can also erode critical analysis and reflective thinking, which are vital to creativity.

First published in The Mandarin

In 1995, Jeremy Rifkin published The End of Work. In it, he argued that as computing power became cheaper and more powerful, designing and building new types of machines controlled by miniature electronic ‘brains’ became possible. Rifkin drew international attention to technology automation, human displacement, and the widening gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

In 2018, the Pew Research Center surveyed 979 technology leaders, including pioneers, innovators, developers, and activists, on Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans.

While many experts showed optimism about AI’s ability to augment human capabilities, they also raised alarms about risks to personal autonomy, privacy, job displacement, and widening economic disparities.

Interestingly, the difference in the titles of Rikin and the Pew Center suggests that over 23 years, our concerns have grown more existential.

In 2025, when AI is everywhere, we will live in the future Rifkin envisioned while facing the challenges identified by Pew’s experts.

Discussions about the ‘future of AI’ have shifted toward its impact on us. Techno-optimists believe AI will free humans from mundane tasks, enhancing our creative contribution. Meanwhile, others are reflecting on the implications of having AI as a colleague.

The research shows that the questions of creativity and the consequences of AI are closely entwined.

We are prone to social loafing

Social loafing occurs when people exert less effort in a group than when working alone. One can coast along knowing that others who are more committed to the outcome will do the extra work.

While most studies on social loafing have focused on human behaviour, our growing reliance on AI collaborators raises an important question: Are we prone to similar tendencies when working alongside AI?

The introduction of GPS for navigation shows that our judgement and cognitive skills can decline when we become accustomed to technology as a daily aid. Social media is filled with drivers following GPS directions into a lake or, to provide an Australian example, Japanese tourists driving to North Stradbroke Island by the most direct route, which led them to drive into the bay at Oyster Point at Cleveland at low tide.

These examples remind us that humans and GPS collaborate in navigation tasks. However, when drivers rely too much on GPS, they outsource critical thinking and judgment.

Living and working alongside technologies like GPS and, most recently, large language model AI complements and challenges our critical thinking skills.

The challenge of AI will be to ensure the workforce remains engaged with the task and has the critical thinking skills to retain independent judgment in an AI-enhanced world.

Social loafing as cognitive laziness

A recent study on the impact of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, indicates that while AI can improve task performance, it might also result in ‘metacognitive laziness’, ultimately hindering deep learning engagement.

This should be a flashing warning lamp for those hoping AI can liberate human creativity, as metacognitive skills involve awareness and learning, including planning, monitoring, evaluation, attention, and self-regulation.

Metacognitive laziness refers to human reliance on external resources, like AI, for cognitive tasks, reducing their metacognitive engagement. This reliance can diminish internal cognitive oversight and self-regulation.

When using AI, people transfer their metacognitive responsibilities, weakening the link between these processes and learning. This trend impairs their ability to critically engage with problem-solving and adjust strategies and approaches in response to new information, undermining performance and impacting long-term learning.

While ChatGPT enhanced short-term task performance, its longer-term effects could weaken the foundations of critical thinking, undermining the aspiration for a workforce engaged in creative problem-solving.

Social loafing as cognitive offloading

Another recent study showed a different aspect of the impact of AI tools on critical thinking, ‘cognitive offloading’.

Cognitive offloading reduces the necessity for deep cognitive engagement, resulting in a decline in critical thinking abilities.

In the study, younger users showed higher AI dependence and lower critical thinking, demonstrating the need for learning and workplace strategies to enhance cognitive engagement and mitigate AI’s potential adverse effects.

The research shows that reliance on AI can diminish our engagement with the critical analysis and reflective thinking processes essential for creative engagement.

Is it possible to be creative without critical thinking?

The optimistic view of AI collaboration is that it frees humans to use their imagination and think original and creative thoughts.

What is overlooked is that creativity often involves challenging conventional thinking, advocating for change, and breaking the rules in innovation. Creative people raise questions about authority and reject norms and traditions. They are rebellious.

This behaviour is often not tolerated in most workplaces, where efficient management treats deviance from the set norms as an error.

The notion that AI-enabled workers will unleash creativity in the workplace is guaranteed to send icy chills down the spines of leaders in both the public and private sectors who are currently struggling with the more straightforward creativity of implementing hybrid work arrangements.

Just as effectively implementing hybrid work requires leaders to think differently about job designs, so does the introduction of AI-human collaboration. However, with AI, the re-design goes beyond the mere design work. We will need to rethink what we learn and how we learn.

Critical thinking, confidence in questioning, appreciation of context, and conscious decision-making will all become prominent in workplace learning.

In addition, a balanced yet questioning approach will be necessary regarding where and how AI tools are utilised as supplements rather than substitutes for humans in decision-making. For example, critical thinking and problem-solving skills may need to be cultivated, at least in part, independently of technology.

Unfortunately, we live in shallow intellectual times for leadership and management when simple, easy, and short-term solutions dominate.

We will get the future we deserve.