Clara Marie Lüders · Olaf Krużycki · Carolin Brandt
In this paper we conceptualize the idea of competence debt, created by unreflected use of generative AI. We sketch how competence debt is created and reinforced through three loops and infer recommendations for organizations on how to mitigate it.
Abstract
With generative AI (GenAI) being taken up in many sectors of the economy, especially in software-related areas, there is a growing urgency to understand how GenAI impacts our work. Because GenAI enables us to produce seemingly great outputs with little skill, the impact on learning and skill-building is especially interesting. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework to describe the concept of competence debt—illustrating how extensive use of GenAI can inhibit learning and impact the quality of our outputs. We apply the conceptual framework to describe various already visible impacts of GenAI on organizations and use it to infer guidelines on how organizations can mitigate the negative effects of GenAI usage.