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Knowledge at Wharton · September 16, 2026 · On the brief until September 30, 2026

Is Overreliance on AI Causing Agency Decay?

ManagementPsychologyPhilosophy
THE AI ANGLE
Eroding independent human judgment through routine cognitive offloading

Wharton scholar Cornelia Walther warns that increasing overreliance on generative AI is causing 'agency decay,' the progressive erosion of an individual's independent thinking, deliberate choice, and personal accountability. As users transition through stages from experimentation to dependence, cognitive and belief offloading diminish critical evaluation and create organizational costs like 'workslop.' To counter these risks, Walther outlines an 'A-Frame' model (Awareness, Appreciation, Acceptance, Accountability) to reclaim deliberate co-agency and protect foundational human judgment.

Summary written by AI Business Lens with an AI model from the article at knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu. It is not the article, and the publisher has not reviewed it. For publishers.

THE TEACHING ANGLE
Instructors can explore the tension between short-term cognitive efficiency and long-term skill degradation, debating whether delegating initial drafts and decisions to AI fundamentally compromises critical thinking and intellectual ownership.

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