When asked to evaluate how good we are at something, we tend to get that estimation completely wrong. It’s a universal human tendency, with the effect seen most strongly in those with lower levels of ability. Called the Dunning-Kruger effect, after the psychologists who first studied it, this phenomenon means people who aren’t very good at a given task are overconfident, while people with high ability tend to underestimate their skills. It’s often revealed by cognitive tests — which contain problems to assess attention, decision-making, judgment and language.
But now, scientists at Finland’s Aalto University (together with collaborators in Germany and Canada) have found that using artificial intelligence (AI) all but removes the Dunning-Kruger effect — in fact, it almost reverses it.
Their research showed that when using common chatbots to solve problems, everyone (regardless of their skill level) tended to put too much faith in the quality of the answers, with the most experienced AI users doing so the most. The team published their findings in the Feb. 2026 edition of the journal Computers in Human Behavior.
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