The AI Memory Gap: Users Misremember What They Created With AI or Without

Ideas: For a given problem, come up with 5 solution ideas (as 1-3 keywords each).

On your own [noAI] or with a chatbot [withAI] Elaborations: Write one sentence about each idea. On your own [noAI] or with a chatbot [withAI] Phase 2 For each problem + solution text: • Did you work on this? [yes / no] • Source of idea? [you / AI] • Source of elaboration? [you / AI] ... and also for distractors (unseen problems/solutions) one week later... Negative impact of AI on source memory overall Mixed workflows harder to remember than never/always using AI People tend to be overconfident about their own performance

How might we solve the problem of plastic waste in the ocean? ( ) Figure 1: Overview of our experiment and findings: In Phase 1 (left) participants were presented with problems and asked to come up with five ideas each (as 1-3 keywords per idea), with or without assistance by a chatbot (alternating across problems).

They then wrote on these ideas (1 sentence per idea), again with or without AI. After a week, Phase 2 (centre) presented the problems and solutions again, asking participants if they worked on this (item memory), and if so, what the source was for both idea and elaboration (source memory). We also showed distractors (unseen problems/solutions). The key findings (right) show that AI had a negative impact, mixed workflows were particularly difficult, and people tended to be overconfident in their own performance.