Throughout history, new technologies have reshaped the way people work. Gunpowder killed off employment for archers and swordsmen, the printing press blotted out scribes and copyists, and personal computers deleted secretaries.

Each advance delivered progress for society—but at the cost of job loss and deskilling.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is triggering disruption. It alters the way people think—and how they work. AI can draft contracts, diagnose medical conditions, spot tumors, compose art and music, and write computer code without a human in the loop.

While AI augments and improves many processes, the deskilling that occurs as a result of AI can contribute to a loss of basic knowledge, a deterioration in social interaction skills, and a diminished ability to analyze, understand, and diagnose critical problems.

“The things that have made us successful as a species include the ability to be creative, adapt intelligently, and solve problems in an innovative way. We have never before had computational tools that approximate the high level thinking of humans,” said Aniket Kittur, a professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

As a result, researchers are exploring ways to reskill, upskill, and develop new and better critical thinking frameworks tailored to AI. “If left unchecked, deskilling can erode the expertise of individuals and the capacity of organizations,” said Janet Frances Rafner, a researcher in the Department of Management at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Skills Lost and Found

Concerns about deskilling appeared in the late 19th century, when machinery and factory automation began to replace human labor on a grand scale. “Specific knowledge and roles disappeared. There were fewer job opportunities—and usually lower pay—for people who had jobs centered on these tasks,” said Matt Beane, an associate professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Today, AI saves time and sometimes outperforms humans at tasks—reading X-rays and summarizing complex documents, for example. As a result, humans increasingly hand over this work to AI. The problem? People who no longer maintain these skills may see their abilities erode, particularly when it matters most. Worse, people with little knowledge or training can perform the same work with AI, thus driving down wages.

Without appropriate oversight and controls, both groups may perform worse. Consider: a study published in 2025 in The Lancet of Gastroenterology & Hepatology found that endoscopists who routinely used AI for assistance in colonoscopies performed worse if access to the technology suddenly disappeared. The detection rate for precancerous lesions dropped from 28.4% to 22.4% without AI in the picture.

Similar issues pop up in law, education, journalism, software development, and other fields. Law professors at Illinois Law School found that students who used chatbots and other forms of GenAI were more prone to critical errors. They concluded that without the right checks and balances, the technology could lead to widespread deskilling, particularly among younger and less-experienced attorneys that might depend on AI as their primary source of information.

Learning Curves

There’s a reason AI causes deskilling. In a 2025 survey conducted by Microsoft Research and Hank Lee, a Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student, knowledge workers reported that generative AI made tasks seem cognitively easier. But there was a catch: researchers found they were ceding problem-solving expertise to the system and, instead, focusing on functional tasks like gathering and integrating responses. At the same time, they became more confident about using AI. “It is plausible that high confidence in AI could lead to lower perceived effort,” Lee said.

To be sure, AI can serve as both a blessing and a curse. For example, “Senior engineers and coders can often accomplish work faster and better using AI because it accelerates their productivity,” Beane said. Yet the same systems can sabotage younger workers who benefit by collaborating with experts. “Over time, we risk losing future knowledge and expertise,” he noted.

Waves of deskilling are now crashing into almost every line of work. AI gains that seem beneficial over the short term—particularly the ability to work faster—may introduce longer-term and more profound problems, including a hollowing-out of core expertise in many fields, experts say.

“Some people claim that we are reaching a point where AI is on the verge of making humans less efficient and valuable,” said Jacob F. Sherson, director of the Center for Hybrid Intelligence at Aarhus University. While he doesn’t subscribe to that theory, Sherson is concerned. “Deskilling—and any fallout it creates—will be visible only in hindsight,” he observed.

Already, one group of data scientists has warned that by 2027, advances in AI could cross a critical threshold, producing systems that push human labor toward obsolescence. Sherson believes such dire warnings focus on the wrong thing. It’s possible, he said, to actively design a better future through a form of hybrid intelligence built around reskilling and upskilling.

Work Over

Amid all the disruption, a basic question emerges: “Are we ‘raising the floor’ or ‘raising the ceiling’ when we talk about the intersection of human and machine skills?” Kittur asked. AI should expand and amplify human capabilities—things like intuition, creativity, and reasoning—without undercutting core skills, he explained. “The human spark sets the direction,” he said.

Sherson and Rafner said organizations must establish metrics to track both technical and human capacity building. Their hybrid intelligence framework resembles systems that track carbon emissions and sustainability within the context of productivity and profits. In the AI space, this includes factors like employee AI self-efficacy and psychological safety. “The goal is for humans to move up the value chain,” Rafner said.

Organizations must start by designing AI technology around skill development rather than simply reacting to it, Beane said. The CMU and Microsoft group believes organizations must help workers adapt. “Training programs should shift the focus toward developing new critical thinking skills specific to AI use,” said Advait Sarkar, senior researcher at Microsoft Research.

Ultimately, some decisions—particularly those affecting other people—must remain with humans, stressed Kevin Crowston, Distinguished Professor of Information Science at Syracuse University. In addition, society would benefit by establishing certain “non-negotiable” skills: the ability to verify a calculation, write clearly, and analyze information, for example. “People must retain some level of core literacy in areas that are important. They must be able to account for their actions,” he said.

Amid a rapidly changing world, having an objective remaions important. Deskilling can lead to a variety of positive and negative outcomes, Kittur said. How society chooses to design, deploy, and govern AI will determine whether it fuels progress or unleashes misery on the masses. “We have to focus on finding ways to weave AI into work and life in a way that enhances humans,” he said.

***Samuel Greengard *is an author and journalist based in West Linn, OR, USA.

Submit an Article to CACM

CACM welcomes unsolicited submissions on topics of relevance and value to the computing community.

You Just Read

The AI Deskilling Paradox

© 2025 ACM 0001-0782/25/11