There’s a reasonable amount of anxiety that artificial intelligence might be making us all, well, a little less smart than we were before. AI, the worry goes, might become a crutch for critical thinking. When a chatbot can write an email, weigh an investing decision, or explain a complicated subject in seconds, we have fewer reasons to work through those tasks ourselves. And the less we exercise certain intellectual muscles, the rustier they may become.

But that’s not to say intellectual atrophy is some sort of inevitability. In fact, AI can be an incredibly useful tool for sharpening our minds. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude can help us become far more knowledgeable than we were before. Used creatively, AI chatbots can help us build subject-matter expertise ahead of a big job interview or an in-person exam, or pick up a new skill, like becoming comfortable with a computer terminal or even repairing our own appliances.

This isn’t to say that AI won’t have profound implications for how we produce knowledge and what society expects humans to know—or do—on their own. Still, there are ways to approach our own use of AI that can make our minds agile.

AI systems are extremely good at creating customized content, including personalized quizzes and tests on niche subjects where there isn’t always a good Quizlet or practice exam available. To boost your understanding of a topic, consider having AI generate questions for you, like your own personalized tutor, and then adjusting the difficulty to ensure you’re always challenging yourself.

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