Answered means a dedicated research page exists. Partial means the closest research covers part of it. Open means it is on the roadmap and not yet written. Every question has its own link. Last reviewed: 3 November 2026 · Next review due: 3 November 2027.
AnsweredIs screen time the same argument as AI use?#
No, and the difference is a variable rather than a tone. Screen-time work measures exposure with an instrument that correlates with logged use at r = 0.38, and across 355,358 adolescents finds at most 0.4 per cent of the variance. The capability question is about substitution. Przybylski's own group has published the warning against counting hours of AI.
AnsweredIs it safe to use AI for therapy or advice?#
The trial that shows it works had humans reading every message, and the regulator has authorised none of it.
- Simulacra, Copying Humans and AGI: Flags parasocial attachment as the risk to plan for rather than accuracy, two years before that became the mainstream safety concern.
- Mental Health - GPT: Relays and endorses the finding that models add empathy while failing to hold therapeutic structure, in June 2024, a year before that became the standard safety result.
AnsweredShould I let AI make personal decisions for me?#
Advice from a model with no settled view still moves yours, disclosure does not reduce the effect, and 80 per cent believe they decided unaided.
AnsweredShould I use AI to write personal messages?#
The interpersonal penalty attaches to being suspected, not to using it. Suspicion tracks actual use at r=0.22, so the toll is levied close to at random.
- The Thing That Proves You're Human: Answers it more directly than the research page can: the artefact is not the point, being the author of it is, and automating it removes the only thing it was carrying.
AnsweredShould AI remember everything about me?#
Memory as convenience versus memory as leverage, which is a different question from privacy and less well covered.
- Robot Roommate: Extends the question into the home, where the machine is present rather than summoned, and the data is domestic life itself.
AnsweredDo I still need to remember things?#
Offloading is not uniformly a loss: saving one file improved memory for the next. What memory is still for is noticing that an answer is wrong.
- Multi-source Learning: An explicit refusal of the know-less thesis in February 2024, arguing we need to learn more but differently, before the offloading literature made this contested.
AnsweredShould I let AI summarise everything I read?#
Seven experiments, and the one that held the facts identical still found shallower learning and output three times more similar to everyone else's.
AnsweredHow much should teenagers use AI?#
The frequency question is the wrong one. One field experiment: marks up 48 per cent with the tool, 17 per cent below the control once it was removed.
- What I Tell Parents About AI: Argues the metric is wrong. What matters is not hours but whether the social world is contracting from ten people to a thousand to one.
AnsweredIs it bad to talk to AI when lonely?#
Relief during the chat in experiments; heavier use goes with more loneliness or lower well-being in a four-week trial, a twelve-month survey and a Character.AI study, and none shows cause.
AnsweredHow do I raise a child who thinks for themselves?#
By protecting the part of the day where they are stuck. The one experiment that withdrew the tutor found unrestricted users 17 per cent below a never-used control, and the guardrailed group largely spared. Configuration decided it, not hours.
- What I Tell Parents About AI: The augmented mindset stated as a habit a parent can actually model: think first, then use the tool to extend the thinking, never to start it.
AnsweredCan I trust an AI chatbot for financial advice?#
Not for a decision that moves money. A UK vendor's test of 18 models on 121 personal finance questions, published 14 September 2026, found the answers wrong 57 per cent of the time and 88 per cent on the harder ones, and no chatbot answer is regulated advice, so nobody is accountable when it is wrong.
AnsweredIs a chatbot's answer regulated financial advice?#
No. In the UK, recommending a pension, investment or mortgage product is a regulated activity for an FCA-authorised firm with a duty of suitability and a route to the ombudsman. A chatbot's answer carries none of that, and the provider's terms say so.
AnsweredWhat is aI hallucination?#
Generated content presented as factual that is not supported by the model's training data, the provided context or reality.
AnsweredWhat is AI slop?#
AI slop is low-quality content produced in quantity with generative AI and pushed at people who did not ask for it, cheap for the sender to make and costly for the receiver to judge.
AnsweredShould I use AI for medical questions?#
Not as your only guide to what is wrong or how urgent it is. In a 2026 Nature Medicine trial of 1,298 UK adults the models alone named the condition in 94.9 per cent of cases, and people using them in fewer than 34.5 per cent, no better than a control. Written vignettes, one study.
AnsweredIs AI bad for the environment?#
One median Gemini text prompt used 0.24 Wh by Google's count, and the IEA projects data centres to roughly double to about 945 TWh by 2030. Per-prompt and grid figures answer different questions, and none covers training, other providers or local grid strain.
PartialMy teenager uses AI for everything. Is that different from my team doing it?#
Less different than it feels. The mechanism is the same: which repetitions are being skipped, and whether anyone would notice.
PartialMy company encourages AI and my child’s school restricts it. Who is right?#
Both, for their own settings. The school is protecting capability being built; the company is buying output already paid for.
PartialWhat would I want my own child’s employer to do about this?#
A useful test for any policy you are about to approve. Most people set a stricter bar for their own children than for other people’s.
PartialAre young people actually using AI differently?#
Partly, and the answered half is negative. The measurement objection is settled: self-reported usage surveys are the wrong instrument, and the researchers who built the screen-time literature say so in print. Whether young people use AI differently in kind, rather than in reported hours, has not been measured by anyone.
PartialDoes using AI change my creativity?#
At population level it narrows the range. At individual level the evidence says your output improves, and that is what makes it hard to notice.
PartialShould I let AI write for me at all?#
It depends entirely on whether being the author is part of what the writing is for.
PartialShould I use AI to help with parenting decisions?#
Partly answered. The learning-science half is covered; no research has looked at parenting decisions specifically, and the page says so rather than inventing an answer.
PartialShould I trust AI health information?#
Chatbot responses have been rated higher quality and more empathetic than physicians in one study. Neither of those is the same as correct.
PartialWhat do I lose if AI does the boring bits?#
Sometimes nothing. Sometimes the boring bits were where the pattern recognition was being built.
PartialIs it safe to let an AI chatbot see my bank account?#
xAI announced on 26 September 2026 that Grok users can link bank, card and investment accounts and ask it to manage spending, 24/7 Wall St reported from a post on X; whether the access is read-only was not confirmed in the report. The financial advice page holds the evidence on chatbot advice; the decision-rights question, what the agent may do with the account, is the one to settle before linking.
PartialCan a company stop me reaching a human when it uses a chatbot?#
Ofcom said on 25 September 2026 that telecoms firms should make clear when a customer is dealing with AI and must not use it as a gatekeeper blocking access to human support, while judging existing rules adequate for now; 8 per cent of online adults had used AI for a telecoms task. A NatWest survey reported by Computer Weekly the same day found reaching a real person ranked as the top factor in trust. The customer service page holds the evidence.
OpenI set an AI policy at work. What would the same policy look like at home?#
Open, and worth thinking through. Most workplace policies are about disclosure and risk, and almost none about which practice to protect.
OpenHow do I talk to my children about this without frightening them?#
Open. The honest framing is that the tools are useful and the practice is worth keeping, which is harder to say than either extreme.
OpenShould I use AI for relationship advice?#
Open, and it needs care: there are cases where it helps and cases where it substitutes for a person who should be told.
OpenDoes AI change how children develop?#
WATCH. The evidence base is thin, and this should not be published until it is not.
The other territories
- Me and AI 39
- Thinking 40
- Judgement 211
- Learning 88
- Students and university 90
- Career 52
- Skills 46
- Work 125
- Leadership 130
- Organisations 134
- Talent 110
- Evidence and the wider picture 89
- What AI is and where it's going 68
- Agents and autonomy 86
- Memory, companions and the personal 12
- Professions and sectors 96
- Economics and value 24
- Operating model 19
- Boards and directors 56
The same questions, cut by who is asking: boards and directors, chros and hr leaders, school and university leaders, university students, early career and graduates, managers and team leads, regulated and expert professions, parents.
Reference · SS-2026-457 · How I use AI here
Hirji, R. (2026). Everyday life: questions about AI. The SuperSkills evidence base, SS-2026-457. https://thesuperskills.com/research/questions/everyday. Last reviewed 3 November 2026.
An evidence review by Rahim Hirji, not peer-reviewed research. For a material claim, cite the underlying study as well; every study here carries its own permanent link.
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