How AI Assistance Affects Human Skill Development: A Study of Learning with Logic Puzzles

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2608.23543v1
• Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:46:11 GMT
• Title: How AI Assistance Affects Human Skill Development: A Study of Learning with Logic Puzzles
• Abstract summary: We examine tension in a controlled logic-puzzle experiment involving on-demand AI assistance.<n>We find that lower-cost assistance induces more frequent AI use.<n>We also find that participants who request AI assistance during the AI-access phase perform worse at the task after assistance is removed.
• Score: 12.810110526024873
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: While AI assistance can improve human task performance in the short term, it may also undermine the development of skills in the longer term. We examine this tension in a controlled logic-puzzle experiment involving on-demand AI assistance, where participants complete tasks before, during, and after AI is available. By experimentally varying AI request costs, we find that lower-cost assistance induces more frequent AI use. We also find that participants who request AI assistance during the AI-access phase perform worse at the task after assistance is removed, and their subsequent unassisted performance is overestimated when predicted from earlier AI-assisted performance. We use a Bayesian latent ability model to separate initial ability, post-AI ability, and participant-specific skill change, while estimating how independent reasoning during the AI-access phase relates to skill development. The results show that greater independent problem-solving effort is associated with larger gains in latent ability, consistent with the interpretation that skill development is weaker when AI assistance substitutes for independent reasoning.

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