Whether AI assistance hinders development of skills needed to supervise automated tasks

Determine whether the use of AI assistance in workplace settings hinders the development of core conceptual understanding and the acquisition of skills necessary for humans to supervise automated tasks across professional domains.

Background

The paper notes that while AI assistance has delivered productivity gains across many domains, it is uncertain how such assistance affects the human skills required to oversee automated outputs. The authors position this uncertainty as central to understanding the long-term implications of AI adoption in professional workflows, especially in high-stakes contexts where human oversight is critical.

References

Although more workers rely on AI to improve their productivity, it is unclear whether the use of AI assistance in the workplace might hinder core understanding of concepts or prevent the development of skills necessary to supervise automated tasks.

— How AI Impacts Skill Formation  (2601.20245 - Shen et al., 28 Jan 2026) in Section 1: Introduction

On the one hand it raises the question of whether professionals can appropriately evaluate AI precisely when they need it because it exceeds their own capabilities?

— Verify, Offload, Extend & Recommend: Selective Complementarity in AI Support for Physical Activity Planning with Longitudinal Patient Data  (2609.18479 - Pakianathan et al., 16 Sep 2026) in Section 5, subsection “Trust and Verification Issues”