Jenny Burke, Mustard’s most recent market research apprentice, on finding the balance of using AI, whilst still upping her critical thinking game. [This blog was 100% written by a human].
I’m Jenny and this is the first blog I have ever written. I was challenged to write this blog myself, without the use of AI, by a colleague who wanted me to go through the experience of writing it completely off my own back. We went back and forth between us until it got to where it is now.
A bit about me – how I started a career in market research
I came to work in market research through wanting to do an apprenticeship after finishing sixth form. I saw Mustard’s apprenticeship and thought it sounded really interesting – so I applied.
I started my apprenticeship in September 2023, when open AI (ChatGPT) wasn’t even a year old and still in its infancy.
When I joined the team, they were starting to utilise AI and to understand its use cases more. For me, this meant AI has always been a part of my working life and means the way I am learning and developing is different to many of my colleagues and people who have been in the industry for longer. My experience of using AI in my role includes using ChatGPT to give answers to questions that I have, or to help with creativity. There are also other specific AI tools I use regularly for transcription, summarisation and analysis.
Can using AI reduce critical thinking skills?
I am quite happy to use AI and feel it is generally a good thing. HOWEVER… I do feel that with its increasing capabilities some people could potentially use it for ridiculous reasons – when they could easily do the task themselves. I recently read an article [ChatGPT’s impact on our Brains According to an MIT Study | TIME] about how ChatGPT may diminish critical thinking skills and how the use of AI is impacting on students. In my opinion, this article is correct to a certain degree and some students are potentially losing critical thinking, but it doesn’t reflect how AI can also be incredibly helpful, especially within work.
Key takeaways from the TIME article on the impact of AI
To summarise the four negative impacts:
- Weaker brain engagement: Students using ChatGPT showed lower brain activity in creativity, memory, and executive function, producing generic work.
- Better outcomes without AI: Those writing unaided or using Google had stronger mental engagement and learning retention.
- Overreliance can impact recall: ChatGPT users struggled to remember or improve their own work later.
- AI use needs close monitoring: Researchers warn against the uncritical use of ChatGPT in education and urge leaders to ensure its use isn’t being abused.
My personal concerns about AI
I have my own concerns too:
- People using it for everything and losing their opinions as they just ask open AI to answer for them – if people are just copying and pasting, they aren’t really engaged or developing their brain as much as they would by doing it themselves.
- AI is becoming more intelligent by the day, who knows how much more intelligent even by next year? This causes concern for how powerful AI is already and can be, with its ability to re-write itself. It could become out of control and cause ethical problems later down the line.
- It’s advancing so quickly and to such an extent that jobs may be lost.
What I love about AI
But there are so many benefits too! Especially:
- It can make tasks more time efficient so I have more time for others and can get more done in the working day.
- It makes some tasks a lot easier to do which means productivity is improved and my outputs are enhanced.
- It can aid creativity and be extremely helpful for bouncing ideas.
- I can ask it anything when I am stuck or need clarification.
How Mustard is empowering the next generation of critical thinkers
As I am starting out in the industry, Mustard (and, especially, my colleague Anthony) have put a lot of effort into my personal development, but also into how AI can play a role in the business.
There are different ways in which this is being managed. For example:
- Making sure we use our own brains and think first before turning to AI.
- Treating AI as an additional tool to help us – not do our work for us.
- Before using AI, we form our own views and opinions through reading transcripts ourselves, as well as doing our own analysis via data tables.
Having team download sessions and analysis meetings with project teams gives us all an opportunity to prepare and have a say. During these sessions we discuss the emerging findings and plan out the story before touching any AI tools.
My final thoughts
For me, coming into a job straight from school and not knowing much about the industry, it was vital to make sure I understood how and why things are done the way they are. Because of this I didn’t use AI in my apprenticeship at all as I wanted to retain the information I was learning in order to build a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding I needed for the future. I wanted to be able to put into practice what I was doing and fully understand how to do it myself before using any AI tools.
I love the way my team challenge me to think critically, and I know it will only help my career in the long-term.
