Enhancing Critical Thinking with AI: A Practical Guide

Alexandra Schirn

2 months ago

Woman interacting with an AI chatbot interface on a laptop, exploring AI-driven tools for enhancing critical thinking and aiding critical learning.

79% of people in the US interact with artificial intelligence (AI) almost constantly or several times a day. In fact, nearly all Americans use products that involve AI features, but nearly two-thirds (64%) do not realize it. Common AI—enabled products include weather forecasting apps or websites, streaming services, online shopping websites or apps, social media platforms, and navigations apps or websites. Hence, AI is a fundamental tool for accessing information, and tools can be used correctly and incorrectly. This blog post explores the use of AI with the intent to enhance critical thinking.

Practical Steps on How to Apply AI for Critical Thinking

While AI tools allow us easy access to a wealth of information, it may also hurt or ability to reason and critically think. As such, it is important to first examine what the critical thinking process entails:

Identifying the Problem (or question)
Gathering Information from reliable sources
Analyzing and Evaluating the gathered information and your own assumptions
Developing Solutions by considering alternatives
Acting and Reflecting by implementing the chosen solution and evaluating its effectiveness

These practical steps for critical thinking will help you navigate the complexities of data, encouraging you to apply some healthy skepticism to AI data and differentiate between meaningful AI insights and noise.

How Can I Use AI to Enhance My Critical Thinking?

AI can erode critical thinking skills, but it does not have to. Understanding how to use AI as a tool is fundamental to grow your critical thinking. Here are various ways you can enhance your critical thinking with the help of AI:

AI Analyzes Diverse Perspectives

AI has access to diverse viewpoints because it is trained on vast, wide-ranging data drawn from many different sources across the internet and public datasets—including books, news articles, academic papers, forums, and more. That data includes conflicting perspectives, cultural contexts, and ideological differences. As such, AI can summarize arguments on all sides of an issue, helping uses compare and evaluate issues from all angles.

“What are different views on universal basic income?”
“How does this topic look through a religious vs. secular lens?”
“What would a feminist and a libertarian say about this?”
“Compare how the U.S. and Japan approach this issue.”
“Explore the ethical implications of [concept].”

AI Acts as a Tutor for Accelerated Learning

AI can used as a tutor, coach, researcher, and study partner—all in one. It can clarify complex topics, offering new interactive frameworks for understanding.

“Explain [concept] like I am a beginner.”
“Give me a concise summary of [book/chapter/article].”
“Test my understanding of this topic with 3 quiz questions.”
“Teach me [topic] at a high-school level. Now upgrade it to college level.”
“Pretend you’re a tutor. Ask me 5 questions to test my knowledge.”

AI Enables You to Discern in Philosophic Interactions

AI can be used as a “thought partner” to test reasoning or simulate debate.

“What variables haven’t I considered in this plan?”
“Help me make this argument more logically sound”
“What are historical analogies for what I’m facing?”
“Give me 5 unconventional solutions to this problem.”
“Help me explore three different ways to approach [concept]—one conventional, one risky, and one from left field.”

AI Helps Spark Creative Exploration

By acting as a collaborative tool, AI can inspire new angles or hypotheses that spark critical engagement, stretch the imagination, and generate ideas that one would not normally think of on their own.

“Give me 10 story ideas based on [theme].”
“Brainstorm podcast names for a show about [topic].”
“Turn this journal entry into a song.”
“Write the opening line of a fantasy novel set in a city underwater.”
“Pretend you’re a film director pitching a sci-fi remake of Hamlet.”
“What if gravity only worked at night?”
“Give me 3 endings to this story—one tragic, one hopeful, one bizarre.”

Instead of asking AI for answers, you use AI to test your thinking, expose assumptions, analyze diverse evidence/sources, and consider alternatives. Generative AI (a subset of AI that focuses on creating new content) in particularly is fantastic for brainstorming, showing users choices, visuals, and ideas they might not have yet considered. In the end, the choice is yours: take the convenient route of allowing AI to handle critical thinking, or preserve this vital cognitive process for yourself.

Critical Thinking with AI in the Framework of ISO 42001

Critical thinking with AI, particularly within the framework of ISO 42001, involves a systematic approach to understanding, evaluating, and improving AI systems to assure their responsible and ethical use. ISO 42001 emphasizes ethical AI practices, risk assessment, impact assessments, transparency, accountability, data quality, and continuous improvement as key elements for building trustworthy and responsible AI system.

ISO/IEC 42001:2023—Information technology – Artificial intelligence – Management system is available on the ANSI Webstore and in the following Standards Packages: