Intellectual skills, including critical thinking, problem-solving, and reasoning, are reportedly on the decline globally, a phenomenon researchers attribute partly to increased reliance on visual media, according to a recent report by the Financial Times (FT).
Drawing on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)—an international test evaluating 15-year-olds’ skills in mathematics, science, and reading—as well as various assessments of adult cognitive abilities, the FT suggests that human intelligence reached its highest point around the early 2010s and has been steadily decreasing since then.
“Human intelligence appeared to peak in the early 2010s and has been in decline since,”
the publication stated, citing these comprehensive benchmarking studies.
Coinciding with this trend is a notable change in how individuals interact with information. Increasingly, people have shifted from traditional reading towards engaging primarily with visual media. This transition, as the FT noted, aligns closely with a recorded rise in the proportion of secondary-school students experiencing difficulties in PISA examinations.
Moreover, the decline in intellectual capabilities is being intensified by a broader societal trend of decreased reading habits among populations, notably in the United States. This shift, researchers have observed, has been accompanied by a corresponding drop in numeracy and practical problem-solving skills in numerous countries worldwide.
The negative impact of modern media consumption patterns has been particularly linked to passive exposure to vast amounts of content available on social media platforms. Frequent context-switching between different online stimuli is now widely acknowledged as detrimental to human cognitive functions, including attention spans, memory retention, and self-regulatory abilities.
“While active, intentional use of digital technologies can often be beneficial, being passively exposed to infinite content on social media coupled with frequent context-switching has been shown to negatively impact attention span, memory, and self-regulation,”
the FT highlighted.
Adding complexity to this issue, the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, particularly generative AI, has sparked new concerns. Research conducted by Microsoft in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University indicates that outsourcing intellectual tasks to AI may cause human cognitive faculties to decline further. According to their findings, reliance on generative AI can leave individuals’ minds weakened, resulting in a reduction of cognitive abilities crucial to intellectual independence.
Specifically, the research warns that delegating critical thinking tasks to AI leaves human minds
“atrophied and unprepared,”
eventually leading to
“the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”
Such insights have emerged at a time when global investment in artificial intelligence technology continues to surge. Governments and corporations around the world have allocated billions to AI research, notably in fields such as machine learning, natural language processing, and automated systems. Industry leaders including Google, OpenAI, and Microsoft have made significant advances by developing highly sophisticated AI models such as ChatGPT and Gemini, which are capable of executing intricate intellectual tasks.
Amid the ongoing dialogue surrounding human intellectual decline and AI advancement, influential figures like tech entrepreneur Elon Musk have raised warnings about the trajectory of artificial intelligence. Musk recently suggested that AI could surpass human cognitive capabilities within the next three years, voicing his concerns in December following the launch of Aurora—an image-generation model developed by his own AI startup, xAI.
“AI could become smarter than humans in the next three years,”
Musk cautioned, underscoring the urgency of discussions surrounding artificial intelligence’s rapid evolution.
The convergence of these issues highlights a critical crossroads for society. As artificial intelligence increasingly takes on roles traditionally requiring human intellect, understanding the balance between technological innovation and the preservation of cognitive abilities has never been more vital. Addressing the relationship humans maintain with information consumption and digital technology appears essential to reversing or mitigating this concerning trend.
