Default AI Use Will Weaken People’s Core Intelligence, Say Experts

Hyderabad: Expressing concern over people struggling to complete simple analysis without automated help, experts said people’s core skills will weaken when artificial intelligence becomes the default.

Opening the discussion at an AI roundtable held at BITSoM in Mumbai, BITSoM dean Dr Saravanan Kesavan said judgment cannot be outsourced to machines.

“AI is moving faster than our understanding of its social effects, if we teach only tools and not context, we will create managers who trust outputs more than their own reasoning,” he said.

Speakers said the signs of dependence are already visible. Faculty members spoke about the rising use of automated summarisation and drafting tools for even basic tasks. One participant recalled a recent cloud outage that temporarily disabled common AI tools.

According to faculty who were present, several users struggled to complete simple analysis without automated help. “You could see how quickly core skills weaken when a tool becomes the default,” a faculty member said.

BITSoM professor Daniel Ringel, who teaches AI-related subjects, warned that mental reliance grows quietly. “The brain behaves like a muscle,” he said. “If you let AI think for you every day, that muscle weakens.”

He added that his teaching approach centres on getting learners to question AI outputs, identify weak assumptions and build alternative explanations. “Accepting what the model gives you is the fastest path to dependence,” he said.

Industry guests noted that India’s uneven adoption of AI reflects labour conditions as much as technology.

A tech representative said AI already supports pattern detection and fraud monitoring, but “final decisions still sit with humans because accountability does not disappear.”

A manufacturing expert added that many firms retain manual labour “because abrupt automation in India is not just a technical issue, it affects workers, families and local economies.”

Explaining his institute’s approach, BITSoM Research in AI and Innovation Lab head Srinivas Rao Pingali said, “We are trying to build judgement, not dependence.”

He said the Lab works with companies, government bodies and faculty to design applied AI use cases across sectors. “The aim is to teach people when to trust AI and when to push back.”

BITSoM students presented the institute’s rapid AI-build exercise, where MBA students were given only two days to create functional AI tools. Teams showcased chatbots built for MSME support, health and wellness, employee onboarding and even astrology.

A student who demonstrated her project said, “I don’t come from a STEM background and I don’t know coding, but my partner and I were able to finish the assignment in two days. I never knew I could ever build something like this without having learnt to code.”