PARIS, France (AFP) — Generative AI chatbots capable of writing emails and computer code, translating, organizing a trip or coming up with gift ideas are now readily available, prompting some to ask whether human brainpower could suffer for lack of use.

A simple natural-language prompt is usually enough to draw a useable response from a service like ChatGPT or Claude, with the effects making themselves felt in schools and universities, workplaces from offices to courtrooms and our personal lives.

Recent scientific studies suggest there could be harmful consequences to farming out cognitive tasks to AI.

They highlight memory, decision-making and critical thinking as particularly at risk.

One American-British study of 1,222 people, still under peer review, found that using AI tools to solve arithmetic or reading comprehension exercises improved participants' performance in the short term, but in the long run diminished their results and their willingness to keep trying when the tools were unavailable.

"These findings are particularly concerning because persistence is foundational to skill acquisition and is one of the strongest predictors of long-term learning," the authors wrote.

AI's ability to conjure up speedy responses to all kinds of questions "removes learning opportunities" from users, said Carnegie Mellon University doctoral student Grace Liu, the article's main author.