In a study on productive failure, students who struggled to solve math problems on their own before receiving instruction developed significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer knowledge to new problems than students taught the concept first.

6:05be able to handle those things on your own. Now, there was a study from 2014 called productive failure in learning math by Manu Kapur. And for this study, they had two randomized controlled trials with high school students learning math. One group was taught the concept by a teacher first and then solve problems after, and this is known as direct instruction. And the other group attempted to solve the

6:24problems first, failed, and then they received instruction after struggling with the problems. And the key finding was that both groups achieved the same level of procedural knowledge, but the students who struggled and failed first developed significantly greater conceptual understanding and ability to transfer to novel problems. And the number of different solution attempts students generated during the failure phase predicted their learning outcomes. So, the students who struggled didn't

6:47just learn different things. They generated their own representations and solutions, even wrong ones, and those wrong attempts activated prior knowledge and created mental structures that made the eventual instruction from a teacher land more deeply. And so, the failure itself was the preparation. And that's kind of the other thing that I'm I'm getting at here is that AI is literally stealing the ability for you to develop your brain. The way that we learn and

7:09the way that we move throughout the world is based on previous experiences. So, when you give a go at a problem that you know nothing about, you're using your prior experience. But, that means you get to more deeply integrated into your brain and and how everything works. Whereas, if you're just immediately presented with the information, let's say instruction from a teacher or let's say output from an AI, you don't have as

7:29many opportunities to link it back to prior experience, which solidifies that more in your overall understanding. And we actually already know what happens when you outsource cognitive skills to technology. There was a study done on GPS. Researchers at McGill University tested drivers and found that the more someone relied on GPS over their lifetime, the worse their spatial memory got. And a 3-year follow-up study showed the decline was steeper for

7:50heavier users. So, they didn't start out as bad navigators. GPS made them bad navigators. The brain stopped building mental maps because the phone was building them instead. And so now ask yourself, if GPS can degrade spatial reasoning in 3 years, what is AI doing to your ability to think, debug, write, and reason after using it every single day? Now, again, I want to push back against anyone thinking this new world of moving