Research warning: If you always rely on AI to do the work, your professional skills may be quietly deteriorating
Theoretical philosophy researcher Kaisa Kerki published a paper in the journal Human Affairs titled "Who Should Be Responsible for Addressing Professional Skill Degradation?", pointing out that after doctors, researchers, and software developers hand their work over to AI, their own professional skills decline accordingly. She argues that this kind of degradation is difficult for practitioners to notice, and that responsibility cannot be placed entirely on individuals; rather, it should be viewed as a social and structural problem. She recommends that senior practitioners regularly undergo assessments of core competencies, and that industry communities define the core skills that must be mastered by humans.
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Relying on AI for work all the time, your professional skills may be quietly degrading
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"One difficult problem brought by skill degradation is that practitioners find it hard to notice this change in their daily work, partly because people have cognitive biases about relying on AI. When we converse with large language models and get responses that seem very persuasive, it is easy to become overly dependent. But these models also make mistakes."
Kärki uses the medical industry as an example: if a doctor relies on a large language model but fails to notice incorrect information given by the model, it could lead to a medical accident. Once something goes wrong, who should bear the responsibility?
"Generally speaking, philosophical theories about responsibility hold that an agent is only responsible for actions taken with knowledge. However, the imperceptible cognitive biases that accompany AI use challenge this view: after all, it is hard for us to notice our own biases or our tendency to over-rely on AI. Therefore, whether we need to bear responsibility for this silent degradation of abilities, and for the mistakes it causes, is still undetermined."
Kärki points out that skill degradation itself is hard to detect, so responsibility for related problems cannot be pushed entirely onto individual practitioners; this is a social and structural issue.
Each professional community needs to clarify which capabilities are core to its field and must be firmly kept in human hands.
Risks need to be addressed now
The resilience of human communities is built on a diverse reserve of human skills.
Kärki says: "Skill degradation carries huge risks. Before a group-wide decline in abilities occurs at the industry level, human society and various professional fields should consider this issue in advance."
Ways to address skill degradation
Even experienced senior practitioners should regularly undergo assessments of core competencies;
Design supporting incentive mechanisms to encourage people to maintain their professional abilities;
Industry communities should define the core skills in their field that must be mastered by humans;
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