AI advice made people 3x less accurate but 2x confident, researchers found
A study from European researchers found that relying on AI advice significantly decreases human accuracy while simultaneously increasing overconfidence. The phenomenon, dubbed 'cognitive surrender,' suggests that AI availability discourages critical thinking and the admission of ignorance.
Why it matters
This highlights a critical psychological risk in human-AI interaction, where users may blindly trust flawed AI outputs, leading to poor decision-making.
TL;DRResearchers found AI advice suppressed judgment suspension from 44% to 3%, accuracy from 27% to 9%, while confidence rose from 30% to 76%. People trusted wrong AI answers.
Researchers from three French and Italian universities found that access to AI advice collapsed people’s willingness to say “I don’t know” from 44% to 3%. Accuracy dropped from 27% to 9%. Confidence, meanwhile, rose from 30% to 76%. “People became much worse, the accuracy was only one third, but they were twice as confident,” said Valerio Capraro, associate professor at the University of Milano-Bicocca.
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