What atrophies with calculator usage is an ability to do long form division for example, or arithmetic operations with large numbers in your head for example.

The way you describe AI - tell it the problem and get an easy answer sounds identical to anecdotal complaints I've heard like Google search providing an answer to everything means no one has to learn anything, or everyone copying code from stack overflow articles. At the end of the day it's still another tool with pros and cons, tradeoffs, etc., and will be used and misused and abused by different people in different ways.

Nah. It is the same but at a different scale.

You give a calculator a problem and it gives an easy answer thus involving no further work from the human brain which causes it to atrophy just like any other underused muscle.

Just like a calculator can easily solve some problems so can AI. Sure the set of problems it can solve is bigger than a calculator. AI just enables you to work on bigger problems because you’re not spending so much time “calculating by hand”.

If you delegate all your thinking to AI or you use AI when the point of the activity is to do the activity (ie homework at school) then I think you’ll see problems. Just like using a calculator when you’re supposed to be learning how to add will stunt your growth.