How to Use AI Without Hurting Your Ability to Think

How to Use AI Without Hurting Your Ability to Think

By Matt DiMaio
Matt@TheTampaPost.com

Suppose I told you I had discovered an amazing new way to get into great physical shape.

You don’t have to lift weights. You don’t have to do push-ups. In fact, you don’t have to exercise at all.

I’ll simply get somebody else to do all your exercises for you.

Think it’ll work?

Of course not. If somebody else does your push-ups, their muscles get stronger, not yours.

Something very similar may be happening with artificial intelligence.

AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Grok can do remarkable things. They can explain complicated subjects, summarize information, help us write, answer questions and even serve as personal tutors.

But there’s an important question we should be asking:

Are we using AI to make ourselves smarter, or simply to get answers faster?

The distinction matters because there is growing evidence that AI can potentially do either.

What the Research Is Telling Us

In a 2025 study, researchers from Microsoft surveyed 319 knowledge workers and examined 936 examples of how they used generative AI in their work.

One of the findings was particularly interesting: The more confidence people placed in AI, the less critical-thinking effort they tended to report using themselves.

That sounds troubling. But it isn’t the whole story.

In another study, researchers conducted a randomized experiment with undergraduate physics students at Harvard University. Students using a specially designed AI tutor achieved more than double the median learning gains of students receiving an active-learning classroom lesson. The researchers also found that the AI-tutored students learned more in less time.

How can both things be true?

Because the problem isn’t AI. It’s how we use it.

If we use artificial intelligence to avoid thinking, we may be asking a machine to do our mental push-ups for us.

But if we use AI to ask us questions, challenge our assumptions, explain difficult concepts, correct our mistakes and test our knowledge, something very different happens.

AI stops replacing our thinking and starts stimulating it.

There’s a Big Difference Between Seeing and Learning

Consider a simple example.

Suppose you’re trying to learn about the causes of the American Civil War. You open an AI program and type:

“What were the major causes of the American Civil War?”

Within seconds, you receive a beautifully organized explanation.

You read it. It makes sense. You may even feel as though you’ve learned it.

But have you?

Close the screen and try to explain the major causes from memory.

Suddenly, it may not seem quite so easy.

That’s because seeing information isn’t the same as knowing information.

Now consider using AI differently.

Instead of asking for the answer, tell it:

“I want to understand the major causes of the American Civil War, but don’t simply give me the answer. Teach me one idea at a time. Ask me questions along the way. Have me explain the important ideas back to you in my own words. Correct me when I’m wrong. When we’re finished, quiz me without showing me the answers.”

Now the learning experience changes dramatically.

The AI teaches you something, but then you have to think.

It asks a question, and you have to answer.

It asks you to explain an idea, and you have to retrieve that information from your own memory.

When you make a mistake, it can correct you and test you again.

In the first example, AI did most of the intellectual work.

In the second, you did.

Five Better Ways to Use AI

The goal doesn’t have to be using AI less. The goal should be using it better.

Here are five simple changes that can make a significant difference:

1. Instead of “Give me the answer,” try “Help me figure out the answer.”

Ask AI to guide your reasoning rather than immediately providing the solution.

2. Instead of “Write this for me,” try “Here’s what I wrote. Critique it and help me make it better.”

You remain the thinker and creator. AI becomes your coach and editor.

3. Instead of “Summarize everything for me,” try “Explain the parts I don’t understand.”

A summary may save time, but wrestling with important ideas helps develop understanding.

4. Instead of asking AI to tell you what you know, ask it to quiz you.

Testing yourself forces your brain to retrieve information rather than merely recognize it.

5. Instead of “Do my thinking for me,” try “Challenge my thinking.”

Ask AI to question your assumptions, identify weaknesses in your reasoning, offer an opposing viewpoint or ask you questions you may not have considered.

That is how artificial intelligence can become a tool for improving your intelligence.

Try the Closed-Screen Test

There is one particularly simple technique I recommend whenever you’re using AI to learn something important.

After AI teaches you something, close it.

Turn away from the screen and explain what you just learned, out loud and in your own words.

If you can’t explain it clearly, you probably don’t know it well enough yet.

Go back. Review what you’re missing. Then close the screen and try again.

This makes use of an important principle of learning known as retrieval practice. Instead of repeatedly putting information into your brain, you practice getting information back out.

I like to explain it this way:

Putting information in exposes you to it. Getting it back out teaches your brain to remember it.

Don’t Outsource Your Thinking

Artificial intelligence isn’t going away. Nor should it.

Used properly, it may become one of the most powerful learning tools ever created. It can give people of virtually any age access to something previous generations could only dream about: a patient, personalized tutor available whenever they need it.

But convenience has a price if we allow the tool to do all the intellectual work.

So let AI explain.

Let it teach.

Let it question you.

Let it challenge you.

Let it quiz you.

But you do the thinking.

Because perhaps the greatest promise of artificial intelligence isn’t simply that machines can become smarter.

It’s that we can.

 

Matt DiMaio is an author, educator, speaker and Rapid Learning Specialist who has spent more than four decades teaching people how to learn faster, remember more and improve their personal effectiveness. He is the creator of the Be Smarter Faster YouTube channel and author of The 48-Hour Author, along with several books on learning, memory and personal development.

Matt@TheTampaPost.com