In the typical Hollywood action movie, a hero acquires master-level skill in a specialized art, such as Kung Fu, in a few power ballad-backed minutes of a training montage. 

In real life, it may seem self-evident that gaining mastery takes years of intense, deliberate, and guided work. Yet the perennial optimism of students cramming the night before an exam tells us that the pursuit of a cognitive shortcut may be an enduring human impulse.

It is unsurprising, then, that students—and many adults—increasingly use the swiftly advancing tools of AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) as a shortcut around deeper, more effortful cognitive work.