The real danger of AI isn't that it's wrong — it's that it could make us stop thinking for ourselves, a professor says

Lucy Gill-Simmen. Courtesy of Lucy Gill-Simmen A Royal Holloway Dean worries that AI will stop people from asking how they know something is true. Lucy Gill-Simmen says AI can deliver answers, shortcutting the struggle that makes learning happen. "It risks becoming a substitute for thinking," she told Business Insider. AI can produce convincing answers, but a professor says the greater risk is when people stop questioning them. Lucy Gill-Simmen, associate dean for Education and Student Experience at Royal Holloway, University of London, said the technology could make people less willing to question, verify, and investigate information on their own. "Hallucinations are a visible problem because we notice them when an answer is wrong," she told Business Insider of AI's well-documented tendency to invent false information. "The deeper risk is that people stop asking how they know whether an answer is right."