Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task – MIT Media Lab
www.media.mit.edu
This study explores the neural and behavioral consequences of LLM-assisted essay writing. Participants were divided into three groups: LLM, Search Engine, and …

Note: this lemmy post was originally titled MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline and linked to this article, which I cross-posted from this post in !fuck_ai@lemmy.world.

Someone pointed out that the “Science, Public Health Policy and the Law” website which published this click-bait summary of the MIT study is not a reputable publication deserving of traffic, so, 16 hours after posting it I am editing this post (as well as the two other cross-posts I made of it) to link to MIT’s page about the study instead.

The actual paper is here and was previously posted on !fuck_ai@lemmy.world and other lemmy communities here.

Note that the study with its original title got far less upvotes than the click-bait summary did 🤡

  • billwashere@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    2 days ago

    I still remember all my family’s phone numbers from when I was a kid growing up In WV in the 70s

    I currently have my wife’s number memorized and that’s it. Not my mom, my kids, friends, anybody. I just don’t have to. It’s all in my phone.

    But I’m also of the opinion that NOT having this info in my head has freed it up for more important things. Like memes and cat videos 🤣

    But seriously, I don’t think this tool, and AI is just a tool, is dumbing me down. Yes I think about certain things less, but it allows me to ask different or better questions, and just learn differently. I don’t necessarily trust everything it spits out, I double check all code it produces, etc. It’s very good at explaining things or providing other examples. Since I’m older, I’ve heard similar arguments about TV and/or the Internet. LLMs are a very interesting tool that have good and bad uses. They are not intelligent, at least not yet, and are not the solution to everything technical. They are very resource intensive and should be used much more judiciously then the currently are.

    Ultimately it boils down to if you’re lazy, this allows you to be more lazy. If you don’t want to continue learning and just rely on it, you are gonna have a bad time. Be skeptical, questioning, employee critical thinking, take in information from lots of sources, and in the end you will be fine. That is unless it becomes sentient and wipes us all out.