With the rapid advancement and accessibility of artificial intelligence (AI) tools, children increasingly rely on AI systems to answer questions, complete homework, provide creative ideas, or even engage in conversation. While these tools offer great potential as assistants, there is a growing concern that children may be outsourcing their thinking — in other words, relying too heavily on AI rather than exercising and developing their own cognitive, analytical and creative skills.
In this article we examine what outsourcing intelligence to AI means in the context of children; the potential risks and consequences; and then propose practical solutions for children, parents, educators and policymakers to help ensure that AI becomes a supportive tool rather than a substitute for internal thinking.
Outsourcing intelligence to AI can take various forms in a child’s daily life:
A child uses an AI chatbot or homework-helper to generate answers or essays rather than thinking through the problem themselves.
A child asks AI for creative input (e.g., story-ideas, art prompts) and then simply accepts those ideas rather than engaging in ideation themselves.
A child uses AI to solve a step in a learning process (for example, the reasoning or the “how” of a problem) rather than attempting to grapple with the challenge.
Over-time, a child begins to rely on the AI as their “thinking partner” and might skip or under-engage in doing the thinking themselves.
AI tools are increasingly accessible (smartphones, tablets, web chatbots) and often offer fast convenience.
Children (and adults) may prefer speed, ease, or “getting the right answer” to the slower, effortful process of reasoning.
Educational systems often assess results (answers, essays, projects) rather than the internal process of thinking; thus, children may find they can meet the outcome with less internal effort. Research argues this is a deep structural concern. Psychology Today+1
AI tools can appear “smart” and authoritative, which may discourage children from questioning or engaging deeply (e.g., “the AI told me this, so it must be right”).
Below are key risk areas associated with children over-relying on AI for their thinking and learning.
When children use AI to bypass the challenge of reasoning, they may not develop the thinking skills that come from struggle, exploration, making mistakes, and refining ideas. As one article states:
“Students can meet all critical thinking criteria using AI while bypassing actual cognitive development.” Psychology Today
Also:
“Although AI tools can aid decision‐making … they often lead to reduced critical and analytical thinking skills, especially when students become overly dependent on AI‐generated content.”
If children rely on AI for reasoning, when they face a task without AI (or when AI fails, or when they must think on their own), they may be ill-prepared. As the “electric bike” metaphor from the U.S. Department of Education suggests: if you always “pedal with a battery”, you may not have the leg muscles when the battery is gone. Psychology Today
AI may provide polished output, but that doesn’t mean the child understands it, or can explain or defend it. They may accept an answer without evaluating it critically. This undermines metacognitive awareness (i.e., thinking about one’s own thinking). Psychology Today+1
Some research suggests that excessive reliance on AI for interaction might displace human-to‐human interaction (peer discussion, teacher feedback) which is important for cognitive and social development. Children and Screens
AI systems are not neutral; children may receive content that is biased, ambiguous, or that they may mistake for human reasoning. Children may not reliably distinguish AI from humans in some contexts. Children and Screens+1
Here are practical strategies across different stakeholders to mitigate risks and foster healthy use of AI tools in children’s learning and thinking.
Pause and think before asking AI: Encourage kids to attempt reasoning or brainstorming themselves before turning to AI. Ask: “What do I already know? What might be the answer? Let me try first.”
Use AI as a coach not a doer: Instead of asking AI to simply “give the answer”, ask it to “help me check my reasoning” or “give me hints to think about” or “point out where I might have a gap”.
Reflect on the AI output: After getting an answer or idea from AI, children should ask themselves: “Do I understand why this answer works? Could I explain it to someone? Does it make sense?”
Mix manual, slow thinking methods: Encourage writing by hand, drawing diagrams, talking through ideas aloud. The struggle and process helps build thinking skills.
Set boundaries and self-monitor: Limit how often AI is used as a shortcut; keep some tasks “AI-free” to ensure you engage your own brain.
Model good habits: If you always use AI or instant answers yourself, children pick that up. Show them how to think, question, pause.
Talk about AI’s nature: Explain that AI isn’t a human, doesn’t “understand” like we do, and may be wrong. Help children recognise that they still need to use their own judgment.
Establish healthy rules/usage: For example: “We’ll try to do the first half of a homework problem ourselves, then if we get stuck we’ll use AI as a hint tool, not as full answer.”
Encourage metacognitive dialogue: After homework or tasks, ask children: “What thinking did you do? Where did you struggle? What did you learn? What would you do differently next time?”
Ensure varied learning environments: Time for devices/AI, but also time for offline activities: puzzles, discussions, writing by hand, creative play. These build thinking independently of AI.
Redesign assessments: Rather than only assess final answers, design tasks that require students to explain their thinking process, show drafts, reflect on what they changed. (This helps distinguish genuine thinking from AI‐prompted output.) Psychology Today+1
Teach AI literacy: Help children understand what AI can and cannot do; how it works; where errors or bias might occur; when to trust and when to question. Children and Screens
Build scaffolding into tasks: Provide prompts that require reasoning steps, collaborative discussion, peer review, teacher feedback—so that AI is one tool within a broader learning ecosystem.
Encourage metacognition and reflection: Ask students to document their thinking journey: what they tried, what didn’t work, how they revised.
Monitor usage of AI tools: Track how and when students use AI; encourage transparency rather than hidden shortcuts. Develop policy around acceptable use of AI in assignments.
Design child-safe AI interfaces: AI meant for children should have age-appropriate guardrails, transparency about AI vs human origin of content, clear cues to encourage critical thinking, not just answer-delivery. Children and Screens
Promote data privacy and protection: Especially when children use AI, ensure their data is protected, and that they aren’t unknowingly giving away personal information. Thoughtful Parenting
Support research on cognitive impacts: Fund longitudinal studies to understand how AI reliance affects thinking, attention, creativity, metacognition over time.
Provide guidelines around AI in education: National/ regional guidance on how AI should be integrated in schools, teacher training, assessments that reflect the AI era.
It’s important to emphasise that the goal is not to ban AI or treat it as inherently bad. Indeed:
Research shows that AI can add value and help children learn—e.g., some children achieved similar scores when coached by AI tutors versus human tutors. Harvard Graduate School of Education+1
When used consciously, AI can support differentiated learning, personalised pace, immediate feedback, freeing human teachers for higher-order tasks.
The key is how we use AI: as a tool to amplify human thinking, not replace it; as a partner in the thinking process, not a substitute.
Children are increasingly using AI tools, which creates a risk of outsourcing their intelligence—depending on AI to think rather than doing the thinking themselves.
The main risks: underdeveloped critical thinking, fragile cognitive skill sets, lack of metacognitive awareness, over-confidence in AI outputs, displacement of human interaction, and ethical/privacy concerns.
Solutions span multiple stakeholders (children, parents, educators, policymakers) and include promoting thinking before turning to AI, designing tasks that value process over product, teaching AI literacy, implementing boundaries and reflection, and ensuring safe/ethical AI design.
The aim: harness the great potential of AI to assist children’s learning while preserving and strengthening their own cognitive, creative and reasoning abilities.