A University of California, Berkeley research team is drawing attention to the possibility that brief reliance on an AI assistant can change how people approach difficult work. A peer-reviewed study highlighted by EurekAlert on October 9 reports that as little as 10 minutes of AI assistance was associated with reduced persistence on challenging tasks under the study’s conditions. The finding should not be read as proof that everyday AI use permanently reduces motivation or learning; the result concerns a particular experimental setting. Still, it points to a practical question for educators and employers adopting AI tools: whether convenience changes people’s willingness to work through uncertainty before asking a system for an answer. EurekAlert summarized the Berkeley research.