Critical Thinking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Survey-Based Study with Machine Learning Insights

TL;DR

This survey-based study explores how AI usage influences human critical thinking, revealing varied effects depending on user behavior and emphasizing the importance of reflective AI use.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the diverse behavioral profiles of AI users and their impact on reasoning performance, highlighting the nuanced influence of AI on critical thinking.

Findings

AI users show varied reasoning performance linked to dependence and patience.

Dependence on AI correlates with lower critical thinking performance.

Behavioral profiles of AI users include over-reliant, mixed, and balanced types.

Abstract

The growing use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education, professional work, and everyday problem-solving has raised important questions about its effect on human reasoning. While AI can improve efficiency, save time, and support learning, repeated dependence on it may also encourage cognitive offloading, reduce productive struggle, and weaken independent critical thinking. This paper investigates the relationship between AI-use behavior and critical-thinking performance through an interview-based survey combined with short logic and reasoning tasks. The findings reveal a mixed pattern: participants largely viewed AI as a tool for speed, convenience, and learning support, yet many also reported reduced patience for sustained effort. Objective reasoning performance varied considerably across individuals, and the analyses suggest that reduced patience and stronger dependence-related tendencies are more closely associated with lower reasoning performance than background characteristics alone. Exploratory clustering further indicates that AI users do not form a single homogeneous group, but instead reflect tentative behavioral profiles, including over-reliant users, mixed-strategy users, and balanced support-seekers. Although the findings are exploratory, they indicate that AI does not affect critical thinking in a uniformly negative or positive way. Instead, its influence appears to depend on the manner in which it is used. The paper therefore argues that effective human-AI collaboration should support reflection, verification, and sustained cognitive effort rather than substitute for them.