Think Harder, Not Less: The 'AI Makes You Dumber' Myth

Hosts: Mark Smith, Meg Smith

🔴 For full Show Notes: https://www.microsoftinnovationpodcast.com/734

AI augments, it doesn’t replace. The hosts show how to pair human judgment with practical workflows: Copilot’s Researcher to gather sources, branching chats to explore options, and Markdown for efficient prompting. They debunk “AI makes you dumber” headlines, emphasise critical thinking, and share personal use cases from learning to health. The message is simple: bring your seed idea, use AI to scale it, and validate claims beyond headlines.

Join the private WhatsApp group for Q&A and community: https://chat.whatsapp.com/E0iyXcUVhpl9um7DuKLYEz

🎙️ What you’ll learn
- Use Copilot Researcher to compile internal and external sources fast
- When to branch a chat to explore alternatives without losing context
- Why Markdown outperforms JSON for most prompting tasks
- How to combine personal data and medical advice more intelligently
- Tactics to spot sensational headlines and verify claims

✅ Highlights
“it’s not about AI replacing us”
“bring the seed of our own human intellect”
“we need to have our bullshit radars on all the time”
“Calling Bullshit. And it’s the art of skepticism in a data-driven world.”

🧰 Mentioned
MIT study “Your Brain on Chat GPT”: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/your-brain-on-chatgpt/overview/
Microsoft Research Podcast: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/podcast/
Book: “Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World” https://callingbullshit.org/

Connect with the hosts

Mark Smith:  
Blog: https://www.nz365guy.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nz365guy

Meg Smith:  
Blog: https://www.megsmith.nz 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megsmithnz

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Keywords: ai augmentation, critical thinking, markdown, json, microsoft copilot, researcher, branching chats, mit study, calling bullshit, alphafold, whatsapp, intelligence age

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If you want to get in touch with me, you can message me here on Linkedin.

Thanks for listening 🚀 - Mark Smith