Perspective on the Role of AI in Shaping Human Cognitive Development

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution, driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI (GenAI), is rapidly transforming human life, with profound effects on education, employment, operational efficiency, social behavior, and lifestyle. While AI tools potentially offer unprecedented support in learning and problem-solving, their integration into education raises critical questions about cognitive development and long-term intellectual capacity. Drawing parallels to previous industrial revolutions that reshaped human biological systems, this paper explores how GenAI introduces a new level of abstraction that may relieve humans from routine cognitive tasks, potentially enhancing performance but also risking a cognitively sedentary condition. We position levels of abstraction as the central theoretical lens to explain when GenAI reallocates cognitive effort toward higher-order reasoning and when it induces passive reliance. We present a conceptual model of AI-augmented versus passive trajectories in cognitive development and demonstrate its utility through a simulation-platform case study, which exposes concrete failure modes and the critical role of expert interventions. Rather than a hypothesis-testing empirical study, this paper offers a conceptual synthesis and concludes with mitigation strategies organized by abstraction layer, along with platform-centered implications for pedagogy, curriculum design, and assessment.