Over-Assistance and Skill Atrophy

Definition

Over-Assistance and Skill Atrophy examines the mechanisms, conditions and outcomes through which this factor shapes human cognition, learning, collaboration or sustainable performance in AI-supported settings.

Why this matters

Over-Assistance and Skill Atrophy may materially affect human capability, independence, confidence, safety and productivity. Poorly designed assistance can create hidden costs even where short-term output appears to improve.

Research questions

When does repeated AI substitution reduce human skill retention or confidence?

Hypotheses

Full-answer substitution will create greater delayed performance loss than hint-based support, especially for novices.

Proposed methods

multi-arm assistance-level experiments; longitudinal usage analysis; skill-retention tests; preference elicitation; A/B testing; pre-registered analysis; active comparison; subgroup and accessibility analysis; delayed retention or longitudinal follow-up; adverse-effect capture; reproducibility testing; participant debrief

Stakeholders and beneficiaries

end users; UX researchers; AI developers; product managers; safety teams; employers; regulators; AI safety evaluators; product accessibility leads