Impostor Syndrome and Intelligence in the Age of AI

The rise of AI-driven “impostor syndrome” is challenging us to rethink what it means to educate, think, create, and be smart in a world where intelligence is no longer a human monopoly.

Impostor Syndrome Is Back on the Rise with the AI Wave

In the world of AI, many “average” people can suddenly become experts in every field, just by reading and rewriting content created by AI. But because of that, many real experts feel like “impostor syndrome”.

This is the feeling that you don't deserve your achievements, that you are not as good or smart as others think, and that the things you struggle with to advise others are nothing new. Many people also wonder "what I said is because I just read about AI, am I becoming too dependent on AI?" or "is AI doing everything and I just do/say it?".

This syndrome has been mentioned since 1970, although it was not officially included in the medical literature. However, people see this problem increasing again with the recent wave of AI popularity.

If you feel that way, you are clearly not alone and more and more people will feel the same, as the trend of people integrating AI into their lives and work to increase productivity.

The "imposter" syndrome is on the rise again with the recent wave of popular AI. Illustration

This syndrome often appears and affects more in professions that require deep thinking and a broad, comprehensive scope. It can be said that the higher the individual's role and position, the more self-doubt leads to, especially when success is achieved too quickly and too easily, thanks to AI that helps them create deep insights, emotional articles, and breakthrough proposals with minimal effort.

As AI becomes more intelligent, self-directed, and self-determining (like Manus), these “experts” are becoming more numerous and are suffering from a new wave of insecurity. It is self-doubt about whether they create “original content,” whether their skills are valuable, whether they are really smart, or whether the AI is smart.

For example, a content creator using ChatGPT to speed up the writing process may feel that they are not creating “original” content, leading to doubts about their skills. Or a data scientist may question the value of their contribution when AI platforms are able to perform complex analyses that previously required hours of manual work. It is AI that is robbing us of the traditional intellectual effort of thinking deeply about problems, leaving us with a value conflict.

However, in reality, human expertise is still crucial in guiding tool usage with prompts, interpreting data, and making informed decisions, which AI cannot yet do fully automatically.

AI should be viewed as an extension of human intelligence.

AI has been changing the concept of intelligence from “what we know” to “how we shape our knowledge”.

Intelligence was previously built through persistence, effort, repetition, mental exertion, and hardship to validate new knowledge.

But new knowledge is now provided by AI so instantly that we feel it is too easy, no longer satisfied when we open up a new knowledge; nor do we feel that we have any meaningful contribution when AI generates an idea or refines a strategy in a few seconds. We wonder whether that “creativity” is ours or the algorithm’s.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Tran Thanh Nam, Vice Principal of Universityof Education , Vietnam National University, Hanoi

AI has shattered the traditional concept of intelligence. Intelligence is 99% sweat and tears. Intelligence is no longer effort. And creativity falls into a crisis of human identity or authorship of human or machine.

Many surveys have shown that more than 50% of AI users believe that their AI assistants are smarter than them. As a result, they give up trying to think, gradually becoming dependent on AI to think and make decisions. From an educational perspective, this is a very worrying situation.

Recent surveys show that 80% of us have already integrated AI into our work and creative processes. The question is, will this discomfort increase? What problems will humans face? They are increasingly self-conscious that their thinking and creativity are just outsourced (paid to AI to do it for them), the rest is human intelligence.

The way to overcome it is similar to how technophobia has faded with the normalization and ubiquity of technology. We used to fear computers taking our jobs, or cars causing accidents, and now AI is following the same trajectory. Instead of fighting AI with ethical concerns, we should approach it by redefining intelligence to better fit this new world.

AI must be viewed as an extension of human intelligence. Intelligence cannot be viewed as a single result of hard work and effort, but as a continuous, dynamic process of combining human and artificial intelligence to refine ideas and deepen the insights that have been generated.

Intelligence is no longer measured by the effort to come up with a single brilliant idea, but by the struggle to explore, iterate instructions for AI; is a new strategy to synthesize, orient, improve, with the push of AI to produce a meaningful result, create new value for people and serve life.

The value of intelligence is not how hard we work, but how effectively we engage with background knowledge, with AI thinking and creative ideas. The value here is engagement, we own the process even when AI assists. The value of intelligence is not knowing a lot of common knowledge (common knowledge, shallow knowledge) but the depth and accuracy of perception. And AI is like an amplifier of our strategy and thinking.

The easy-to-remember formula in English is ROE (Reframe Intelligence - Own the Process and Effort vs Strategy), which means reframing the approach to intelligence, mastering the process of creating new knowledge and strategies to amplify deep, creative thinking rather than effort. These are ways to overcome the "imposter syndrome" in real experts.

AI is not replacing intelligence but changing the way we define it.

The rise of AI-driven “impostor syndrome” signals a potential shift in cognitive identity, challenging us to reconsider what it means to educate, think, create, and be smart in a world where intelligence is no longer the exclusive preserve of humans.

In a world of autonomous AI, it is not about proving our intelligence to AI, but about learning how to shape our intelligence with AI amplification.

Assoc.Prof.Dr. Tran Thanh Nam, Vice Rector of University of Education, VNU

Source: https://daibieunhandan.vn/hoi-chung-ke-gia-mao-va-tri-thong-minh-trong-ky-nguyen-ai-post409733.html