The Risks of Developing an Artificial Naval Mind

U. S. Naval Institute ^ | November 2026 | Captain Benjamin Armstrong, U.S. Navy

[Retain Mike]

Scholars have developed ways of thinking about the differences in how learners engage with a subject. The ICAP framework categorizes student learning as interactive, constructive, active, or passive. Research indicates the strongest learning—in terms of both content recall and conceptual understanding—comes from the interactive and constructive types, in which learners must generate their own ideas and make complex and multilevel connections. For example, a project for which a student is required to do research—finding and reading sources then determining an argument based on them—is both interactive (with the sources) and constructive (developing and communicating an argument).1

Studies examining how students employ artificial intelligence for those tasks show that using AI pushes them almost exclusively into passive learning, the least effective category. If this becomes common, students will retain less domain knowledge. Their ability to identify false, superficial, or biased information will degrade, and they may trust the AI without recognizing or understanding problems with the output.

Recent studies have begun to examine this logic. The results have been strongly negative. In one study, MIT researchers assigned student volunteers to three groups. One completed the test project—write an essay—using a large language model (LLM) in all elements of their work. Another was permitted to use only traditional internet search engines. And a third was “brain only.”

After the essays were submitted, the volunteers were tested on a series of cognitive tasks. The results were stark. Minutes after submitting their essays, only 16 percent of LLM users could quote something from their work, but 88 percent of the brain-only group could do so. Through multiple iterations, the AI-using group had degraded neural connectivity even when asked to complete additional tasks unassisted by AI. In short, the brain did not return to baseline, but stayed degraded.3

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TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet; Education; Military/Veterans
KEYWORDS: ai; development; mind

[Retain Mike]

All AI has to seek out and build upon original thoughts, so what happens when there are not anymore?