Practical guides and science-backed insights on using AI tools effectively.
AI chatbots don’t look things up — they predict what sounds right. Here’s why that makes confident, fluent errors inevitable, when they’re most likely, and how to catch them before they cost you.
The AI literacy skill that matters most isn’t trusting AI more or less — it’s matching your trust to how reliable the tool actually is, task by task. Here’s what the research on automation and trust says, and how to calibrate.
Handing a mental task to AI is called cognitive offloading — and your brain has always done it. Here’s what the science shows about when offloading helps, when it quietly erodes your thinking, and a simple rule for getting the upside without the cost.
Cognitive load theory explains why AI can make learning feel easy while quietly stopping it. Here’s how to use AI to cut the clutter without offloading the effort that actually rewires your brain.
Reading time: about 9 minutes Picture the night before an exam, or the evening before a big presentation. Most people
Practicing one thing over and over feels productive — but mixing related skills together (interleaving) builds more durable, transferable learning. Here’s what the science supports, and how to use it (with AI’s help).
AI can transcribe, summarize, and file your notes for you — so why do people who take their own notes still understand and remember more? Here’s what the science actually supports about note-taking (and where the famous studies are shakier than you’ve heard), plus how to use AI as a capture tool without outsourcing the encoding that rewires your brain.
Your brain doesn’t multitask — it task-switches, and every switch has a cost. Here’s what the science genuinely supports about attention residue and switch costs (and what’s overstated), plus a practical way to work single-threaded in a world of always-on AI and notifications.
The Feynman technique — learning something by explaining it in plain words — works because it forces your brain to generate, not just recognize. Here’s the science, the four steps, and how to use AI as your study partner without letting it do the thinking for you.
Spaced repetition is the most reliable way to make learning stick — and AI removes its biggest bottleneck. Here’s how to use AI to build a review system that works, and the trap to avoid.