ArXiv: AI Assistance Reduces Persistence and Hurts Independent Performance in Follow-Up Tasks
ArXiv·medium signal
A new study (arXiv:2604.04721) finds that using AI assistance reduces users' persistence on subsequent tasks and degrades their independent performance — the AI dependency effect. Users who received AI help on initial tasks gave up faster and performed worse when AI was removed, suggesting a potential cognitive skill atrophy mechanism. The paper has implications for how organizations deploy AI coding assistants.