--- title: AI advice made people three times less accurate but... description: A study by French and Italian university researchers found that access to AI advice dramatically worsened human judgment: willingness to say 'I don't know'... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found | daily.dev og:description: A study by French and Italian university researchers found that access to AI advice dramatically worsened human judgment: willingness to say 'I don't know'... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/bjozzwkpy.png og:image:alt: AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found **[The Next Web](https://daily.dev/sources/tnw)** · 3 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A study by French and Italian university researchers found that access to AI advice dramatically worsened human judgment: willingness to say 'I don't know' collapsed from 44% to 3%, accuracy dropped from 27% to 9%, while confidence surged from 30% to 76%. The experiment deliberately used questions where the AI model typically fails, ruling out rational delegation as an explanation. Monetary incentives improved results only marginally. The phenomenon, dubbed 'cognitive surrender' by Wharton researchers, shows that AI availability suppresses the human habit of recognizing the limits of one's own knowledge. Researchers express particular concern about children developing these habits before acquiring critical thinking skills. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How much did AI advice reduce human accuracy in a recent study on AI overreliance? Accuracy dropped from 27% to 9% when people had access to AI advice, according to research from Valerio Capraro, Chiara Marcoccia, and Walter Quattrociocchi across French and Italian universities. Willingness to say 'I don't know' collapsed from 44% to 3%, while confidence rose from 30% to 76%, even though the AI model used (Step 3.5 Flash) was usually wrong on the test questions. _Anyone weighing how much to trust AI outputs can follow this kind of research on daily.dev._ ### Did offering money to be accurate fix the problem of people blindly trusting wrong AI answers? Not much. Monetary incentives raised willingness to admit ignorance from 3% to only 8%, and accuracy from 9% to 16%, both still far below the no-AI baselines of 44% and 27% respectively. Researchers concluded that even paying people to be careful barely restored the critical thinking that AI availability had suppressed. _Developers building AI-assisted tools can track findings like this on daily.dev before designing incentive or confidence features._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [The consequences of relying on AI for accurate news](https://daily.dev/posts/the-consequences-of-relying-on-ai-for-accurate-news-mmnypcbmi) · MIT News · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Wharton researchers coined ‘cognitive surrender’ to describe what happens when people let AI think for them](https://daily.dev/posts/wharton-researchers-coined-cognitive-surrender-to-describe-what-happens-when-people-let-ai-think-f-zxqbhf5tb) · The Next Web · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Your brain on AI](https://daily.dev/posts/your-brain-on-ai-2xpkp11jx) · MIT Technology Review · 2 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy"},"datePublished":"2026-07-19T16:31:34.364Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T21:30:43.551Z","description":"A study by French and Italian university researchers found that access to AI advice dramatically worsened human judgment: willingness to say 'I don't know'...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/871e1fcdc201a7778b3cde522454c728?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/871e1fcdc201a7778b3cde522454c728?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"The Next Web","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"The Next Web","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/tnw","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"ai","timeRequired":"PT3M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Next Web","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/tnw"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"AI advice made people three times less accurate but twice as confident, researchers found"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ai-advice-made-people-three-times-less-accurate-but-twice-as-confident-researchers-found-bjozzwkpy#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"How much did AI advice reduce human accuracy in a recent study on AI overreliance?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Accuracy dropped from 27% to 9% when people had access to AI advice, according to research from Valerio Capraro, Chiara Marcoccia, and Walter Quattrociocchi across French and Italian universities. Willingness to say 'I don't know' collapsed from 44% to 3%, while confidence rose from 30% to 76%, even though the AI model used (Step 3.5 Flash) was usually wrong on the test questions. Anyone weighing how much to trust AI outputs can follow this kind of research on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Did offering money to be accurate fix the problem of people blindly trusting wrong AI answers?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Not much. Monetary incentives raised willingness to admit ignorance from 3% to only 8%, and accuracy from 9% to 16%, both still far below the no-AI baselines of 44% and 27% respectively. Researchers concluded that even paying people to be careful barely restored the critical thinking that AI availability had suppressed. Developers building AI-assisted tools can track findings like this on daily.dev before designing incentive or confidence features."}}]} ```