Erosion of professional skills caused by artificial intelligence?

The potential of artificial intelligence lies in its ability to complement human expertise rather than substitute for it. However, the question is what happens when the partnership becomes a dependency. A study published in August 2025 in The Lancet found that experienced endoscopists who regularly used AI to detect polyps showed a measurable decline in performance without it.

After just three months of intermittent AI exposure, there was a six percentage point decrease in cancer detection rates – from 28.4% to 22.4% in non-AI procedures. These were not novice players. Each of them had performed over 2,000 colonoscopies. However, exposure to AI led to a degradation of skills developed over the years. When AI is used for pattern recognition, clinicians become less involved in visual searches. Their diagnostic capabilities had atrophied through disuse.

Medicine is not the only field affected by this issue. In the aviation industry, 77% of pilots surveyed report a decline in their manual flying skills. In the cases of Air France Flight 447 (2009) and Asiana Flight 214 (2013), automation failures led to situations in which pilots, trained to rely on technology, displayed a lack of fundamental airmanship, resulting in catastrophic outcomes. Legal AI research tools are generating fabricated case citations at an alarming rate. It has come to our attention that several attorneys have been subject to sanctions for submitting briefs generated by artificial intelligence that cited non-existent cases. Software development faces similar risks: GitHub Copilot generates code with security vulnerabilities 29-40% of the time.

1. Sources:
   Budzyń, K., et al. (2023). Endoscopist deskilling risk after exposure to artificial intelligence in colonoscopy: A multicentre, observational study. The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, 10(10), 896–903. ​https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-1253(23)00206-3​
2. Macnamara, B. N., Berber, I., Çavuşoğlu, M. C., et al. (2024). Does using artificial intelligence assistance accelerate skill decay and hinder skill development without performers’ awareness? Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, 9, 46. ​https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-024-00572-8​
3. Pearce, H., Ahmad, B., Tan, B., Dolan-Gavitt, B., & Karri, R. (2025). Asleep at the keyboard? Assessing the security of GitHub Copilot’s code contributions. Communications of the ACM, 68(2), 96–105. ​https://doi.org/10.1145/3575693​
4. The Guardian. (2023, April 17). Air France and Airbus cleared of involuntary manslaughter over 2009 crash. The Guardian. Retrieved from ​https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/17/air-france-and-airbus-cleared-of-involuntary-manslaughter-over-2009-crash

This article is part of the project “People and Algorithms in Organisations: Competences to Work in the Digital Environment” (DIGIT_People and algorithms), funded by the NAWA – Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej (Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange).

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