ai access makes people 36x less likely to say 'i don't know
researchers found people rely heavily on ai advice, even when it's wrong, leading to more answers but fewer correct ones. this affects how people handle uncertainty.
researchers ran five experiments with 3132 participants to test the impact of ai access on handling uncertainty. they used a language model, step 3.5 flash, that was often wrong on specific questions. with ai advice available, participants were 36x less likely to say 'i don't know'. correct answers decreased significantly, from 27.6% to 10.0%, while confidence increased. financial incentives helped but didn't fix the problem.