MedPage Today January 19, 2026
Artificial intelligence may make doctors worse, but it exposes an old problem we’ve ignored
I recently wrote about an MIT Media Lab study that raised concerns about “cognitive debt,” a term referring to the idea that repeated reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) for complex tasks may weaken learning, memory, and critical thinking. In the MIT study, this concern was associated with reduced EEG activity among participants who relied heavily on AI.
That research was soon followed by another troubling finding reported in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology. In the study, seasoned gastroenterologists — averaging nearly three decades of experience and more than 2,000 colonoscopies each — adopted AI-assisted polyp detection. Initially, the results were reassuring. When AI was active, adenoma...
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