It’s Critical: How Do We Teach Critical Thinking & Logic in an AI-Driven World?
Critical thinking is declining while AI requires strategic thinking to be used effectively.
It’s a major crisis in the workforce.
Problem: People who don’t know how to think critically will either:
Trust AI blindly (and get bad results)
Reject AI out of fear (and get left behind)
Use AI lazily (and produce shallow work)
Solution: We need to teach people how to think in structured, strategic ways so that they can effectively ask AI the right questions, challenge its responses, and make better decisions. We need to make it a part of our organizational culture: “We value, invest in, and apply critical thinking.”
Three Ways to Teach Critical Thinking in an AI-First World
1. Teach, mentor, and model the “Interrogation Mindset” – The Skill of Strategic Questioning
AI doesn’t deliver premium goods unless it’s asked high-quality questions.
The best leaders don’t accept surface-level answers, they push deeper. This is what’s needed.
Teaching students and employees to use AI well means teaching them how to ask great questions.
Practical Exercise:
Give students or employees a bad AI response and challenge them to improve it by asking better questions.
Show them how AI’s output directly improves based on the depth of their thinking.
Takeaway: Instead of just “prompting AI,” people need to learn how to interrogate it.
2. Train People to Challenge AI (and Think Beyond the First Answer)
AI’s first response is rarely the best response.
People need to learn to push AI further and not just accept its output at face value.
Critical thinking involves testing, refining, and verifying AI’s logic.
Practical Exercise:
Provide an AI-generated answer with deliberate flaws or biases.
Challenge students or employees to fact-check, improve, and refine the response.
Teach them to ask AI to justify its answers, explain reasoning, and provide counterpoints.
Takeaway: The best AI users are skeptical thinkers. Teach people to ask “why” before they accept “what.”
3. Reverse Engineer Decision-Making With AI
Most people don’t naturally break down how they think.
AI forces them to verbalize their thought process in a structured way.
Teaching decision-making through AI reinforces logical reasoning.
Practical Exercise:
Present an ambiguous or complex problem.
Ask AI: “What factors should I consider before making a decision?”
Compare AI’s response with human intuition and logic.
Debrief: What did AI miss? What did AI get right? How do we synthesize both?
Takeaway: AI can mirror human logic back to us helping people refine their own decision-making.
How This Connects to the Workforce, Future Leaders, and AI
Executives already have strong strategic questioning skills—that’s why they succeed. Many in the next generation lack this critical ability.
The key to AI mastery isn't learning "prompt engineering." It’s learning how to think.
If we don’t fix critical thinking, AI will make the workforce weaker, not stronger.
If we teach people to think strategically, AI becomes a multiplier, not a crutch.
Who is responsible for teaching this? Schools? Employers? AI trainers? Leaders? WE ALL ARE.
—Liz B. Baker, Founder & Chief Advisor, Nimbology