Leaning on AI

In the first few weeks of school this fall, one of my children experienced unexpected health issues that led to a few hospitalizations, several weeks of treatment, and many missed days of school. School, of course, did not stop, and while some accommodations were made, those missed days led to missed learning. My child returned to school already behind, trying to catch up while still feeling physically and emotionally worn down.

In the middle of that exhaustion, my child made a decision I didn’t know about at the time. They used AI to help take a test in an honors class. When I eventually learned what had happened, the outcome was already decided: a D on the exam.

There were consequences and conversations that followed, but what has stayed with me is not the grade. What stayed with me was the reason why my child used AI: not because they were lazy but because they were overwhelmed.

As a college professor, I’ve had students use AI when it is not permitted. This has been frustrating for me, and my first reaction has often been to attribute its use to the student being lazy, having poor time management skills, or even lacking the ability to simply think critically on their own.

However, my child’s experience challenged that assumption. Perhaps many students are turning to AI simply to keep their heads above water. AI is very appealing. It takes away the stress and time required to complete a task. We love its efficiency—and how efficient it makes us feel. It drafts our emails, plans our meals, and edits our grammar. In fact, I’ve even used AI to edit this very piece.

Perhaps even more, we love how self-sufficient it makes us appear.

AI’s efficiency makes it easy to avoid admitting, “I don’t understand,” “I’m struggling,” or “I can’t do this on my own right now.” In this sense, AI can become a “stress crutch.” We lean on it to take away the discomfort of asking for help or the anxiety that comes with working under a deadline. We no longer need to rely on others, admit that we don’t quite know what we’re doing, or wrestle with stress. Instead, we can lean on AI, and it is quite easy to seem like we are confidently handling life on our own.

Developmentally, students actually need opportunities to practice managing stress in healthy ways. Adolescence and emerging adulthood are critical seasons for building what psychologists call executive functioning skills. Executive functions allow us to mentally manipulate ideas, pause and reflect before acting, handle unexpected challenges, resist distractions and impulses, and maintain focus[1].

According to The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology[2], executive functions develop rapidly during early years of childhood but also continue to develop into the third decade (!) of life. Interestingly, poor executive function skills in childhood may predict maladaptive behaviors such as criminal activity, drug use, and other problems in adulthood.

Jonathan Haidt writes about this extensively in his book, The Anxious Generation [3]. The core thesis of his research works to identify why Gen Z has experienced such an uptick in mental health struggles. Haidt, a social psychologist, argues that this is linked to the rise in technology use, which has replaced traditional “real-world” play. His research also reveals it is connected to the growth of parental “safetyism,” which leads to less unsupervised “real-world” play that would typically involve risk and help build resilience.

We do a disservice to ourselves and especially the younger generations if we eliminate stress entirely—not only because it impacts our ability to develop executive function (EF) skills and resilience, but also because it leaves them unprepared for the workforce. A recent Washington Post [1] article posed the question, “Can AI do your job?” According to the author, “[t]he best-performing AI system successfully completed only 2.5 percent of the projects.” This means that those in emerging adulthood and entering the workplace will still need to know how to produce and perform independently, as they cannot (at least for now) fully rely on AI. Even with AI, humans will still need to produce, think critically, and manage complex tasks and will need strong cognitive and emotional skills to succeed in a workforce that uses AI as a tool, not a replacement.

Outside of work, leaning on AI has other interpersonal implications as it gives us an opportunity to avoid vulnerability. In her book Daring Greatly, researcher Dr. Brene’ Brown defines vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. In other words, it’s our emotional reaction to experiencing uncertainty or when we have to let go of our control.

Brown’s research has centered around vulnerability and how it is highly connected to feelings of guilt and shame. We often view vulnerability as weakness, but Brown encourages us to see vulnerability as strength. In a book talk at the University of Minnesota[3], Brown insists, if we have felt vulnerable we must have also felt brave.

Earlier in this essay, I shared that I used AI to help polish my writing. Admitting that felt risky, and it made me feel vulnerable. I’ll admit, there was also some shame tied to that admission because it suggests I’m not as strong an editor as I’d like to be, and it might even imply hypocrisy in critiquing the tool I relied on.

That discomfort is the point. When we turn to AI to escape stress, we also risk changing how we engage in relationships. Using AI can make it easy to sidestep hard conversations and the relational challenges that naturally come with stress. Yet vulnerability, or admitting “I need help” or “I don’t understand,” is essential for authentic connection. When we use AI to hide our struggles, we miss the chance to practice the vulnerability that deepens relationships.

This raises an important question for us to consider: how do we know when AI is helping us? It’s not about whether AI is “good” or “bad,” but about paying attention to how it shapes our work and our habits. When used thoughtfully, AI can lighten our load and give us more space to focus on meaningful work or relationships. But when it becomes a way to avoid discomfort, it can slowly take away the struggles that help us grow.

I’ve seen this in my own life. Recently, I used AI to help me choose a floor tile that would complement the 60’s mauve bathtub we’re not quite ready to replace. I find it hard to put multiple ideas together and imagine the finished project, so having ChatGPT generate an image saved me some frustration at the home improvement store and spared me from decision fatigue. In advance, I did choose 3-4 tile patterns that I liked and asked ChatGPT to help in narrowing it down. Using AI in this way allowed me to assist with the design based on my own taste and enjoy the process rather than feeling overwhelmed.

However, leaning on AI has its downsides. I once drafted an important email with the help of ChatGPT to make my points clearer and more concise. While it saved me time, when I reread the draft, I realized the tone was off and it was too impersonal. Had I sent it as-is, I might have unintentionally distanced the recipient or missed an opportunity for authentic connection. In this case, the use of AI could have been harmful to my relationship and even my reputation.

When considering the use of AI, I think it’s important to ask these questions: Am I using this tool to support my ideas or to avoid the mental work needed to develop them? Am I leaning on AI to steward my time, or to skip the discomfort that ultimately shapes my character?

When we practice discernment, we can use AI in ways that enhance our work and our lives without missing the growth and connections that are important.

The Christian life calls us to persevere through adversity. This is not a simple skill learned by outsourcing our struggles to ChatGPT. Scripture reminds us that God’s power is made perfect in our weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). When Paul wrote those words, he was pleading for relief from his own thorn in the “flesh” and God’s response was not to remove the hardship but to reveal “His grace is enough.” Stress and uncertainty are not signs that we are failing; they are opportunities to lean into our faith, to trust that God’s strength is most visible when ours runs out, and to lean on others for support.

References:

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2026/ai-jobs-automation/
2. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199958450.013.0025
3. https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/daring-be-vulnerable-brene-brown