One of Britain’s oldest scientific institutions warned that the rise of instant-answer AI tools could dull human intelligence by discouraging inquiry and verification. Paddy Rodgers, who oversees the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said growing dependence on chatbots and AI summaries risks distancing users from primary sources and weakening habits that underpin expertise and innovation. The caution comes as the museum’s First Light project spotlights centuries of astronomers whose curiosity produced datasets later repurposed for breakthroughs—work that machines might not have pursued. The remarks land amid rapid adoption of generative AI in search and social platforms, including Google’s AI Overviews, even as researchers document “cognitive outsourcing” and overreliance on automated systems. Proponents note AI’s upsides—from DeepMind’s AlphaFold to investors urging people to use AI as a critical counterweight—underscoring the need to balance convenience with the preservation of human judgment.
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