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Soft Skills

When AI Hurts Learning – and When It Doubles Results

10 min read

In March 2025 at SXSW EDU, strategic foresight advisor Sinead Bovell delivered a talk on AI and the future of education. No hype, no panic. But with two studies that change how you should think about AI’s role in learning.

First: a group of students who used ChatGPT without restrictions scored 17% worse than the control group working from a textbook. Second: a different group, where AI was deployed within a fully redesigned instructional system, outperformed a traditional lecture by a factor of two.

Same tool. Opposite outcomes. The difference is in the approach.

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When AI Hurts Learning – and When It Doubles Results
AI Doesn't Make You Dumber. It's About How You Use It
9 min

AI Doesn't Make You Dumber. It's About How You Use It

A year and a half ago, I wrote a note on my personal blog about something I was noticing in my colleagues’ work and in my own: the more you trust AI, the less often you ask yourself “is this actually right?” I was drawing on a Microsoft study at the time – it showed that trust in AI suppresses critical evaluation of the answers it produces. The argument felt strong to me, but it had an obvious flaw: correlation, not causation.

In February 2026, Anthropic researchers Judy Shen and Alex Tamkin published an experiment that closed that gap. Randomized control. Concrete data. And a conclusion that, I think, most people who’ve read about it have misunderstood.

Because this isn’t a story about AI making us dumber. It’s a story about how exactly we use it.

Why Learn AI in a Course When ChatGPT Knows Everything: A Research-Based Analysis
12 min

Why Learn AI in a Course When ChatGPT Knows Everything: A Research-Based Analysis

“Why would I need your course when I can just ask ChatGPT?”

This question shows up in the comments under every post about AI education. The logic is bulletproof: the internet is free, ChatGPT will explain anything, YouTube is overflowing with tutorials. Why pay for a course when all the information is already out there?

It’s a great question. The answer is not the one people expect to hear.

Because between “having access to information” and “knowing how to work with it” – there is a chasm. Access to medical textbooks doesn’t make you a doctor. Owning a kitchen knife doesn’t make you a chef. And the ability to ask ChatGPT a question doesn’t make you an AI specialist. As MIT’s research on choice architecture shows, a specialist’s real strength lies not in having the tool, but in the ability to critically evaluate what the tool suggests.

And this isn’t just a neat metaphor – it’s a research-confirmed fact.

The Transparency Dilemma: Should You Tell Clients the Text Was Written by AI?
15 min

The Transparency Dilemma: Should You Tell Clients the Text Was Written by AI?

You’ve written the perfect client email. The tone is spot-on, the arguments flow, there’s even a well-placed joke. One problem: you didn’t write it. Claude did. Or ChatGPT. Or Gemini – doesn’t matter.

Now the question: do you tell the client?

Instinct says: “Of course not. Who cares how it was written if it’s written well?” Corporate ethics whispers: “You should be transparent.” And the science says something unexpected: both options erode trust – but in different ways and with different consequences.