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The article argues that reliance on AI without foundational understanding creates 'cognitive debt', a hidden cost that may lead to professionals who cannot interrogate or evaluate AI outputs in high-stakes fields like law, medicine, and finance.
A multi-institutional study of 1,222 participants found that brief AI assistant use (10 minutes) led to measurable cognitive decline and reduced effort on subsequent tasks compared to control groups, termed the 'boiling frog' effect. The research provides causal evidence that even short-term AI reliance may impair independent problem-solving performance.