AI Is Making Us Mentally Unfit, Professor Warns

A leading public health expert is raising alarm about the mental effects of artificial intelligence. Professor Devi Sridhar, chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, says she suspects nearly all of her students use AI — and she worries about its "corrosive effects" on their brains. Sridhar compares the problem to physical exercise: just as a lack of movement harms the body, relying on AI may harm the mind. She warns that we must not hand our long-term health to technology companies. She recalls a job interview at a major consulting firm in the early 2000s, when she was a postgraduate student at Oxford. Asked about the future of streaming, she raised concerns about how new technology changes the way humans interact — and whether those changes serve public health. She did not get a second interview. Her message now is blunt: the risks of AI to our thinking deserve the same attention we give to the risks of inactivity.