Abstract

This essay claims that delegating cognitive labor to generative AI remains a form of cognitive offloading rather than a new type of cognition. Its distinctive characteristic is that students may not only hand over the execution of tasks, but also delegate aspects of metacognitive monitoring and control, including strategy selection, evaluation, and error detection. Based on research on cognitive offloading, metacognition, AI-supported learning, and distributed cognition, the essay distinguishes between task-level and meta-level delegation. This suggests that AI might enhance assisted performance but undermine independent learning and metacognitive calibration when learners relinquish regulatory control. Education should not foster cognitive isolation but maintain the learner’s metacognitive loop of prediction, initial attempt, selective delegation, evaluation, reconstruction, feedback, and recalibration, with AI complementing rather than replacing the learner’s ability to regulate cognition.

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