Need Help Writing?

If you use AI you risk cognitive decline.

According to numerous new reports, (several are listed below), using AI to help you write will cause long-term cognitive decline, which was also the topic of the essay, “Don’t Stop Writing” last week.

Now, I want to go into much more detail. Author Nicolas Hulscher gives us the specifics.

“A new MIT study titled, Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task, has found that using ChatGPT to help write essays leads to long-term cognitive harm—measurable through EEG brain scans. Students who repeatedly relied on ChatGPT showed weakened neural connectivity, impaired memory recall, and diminished sense of ownership over their own writing. While the AI-generated content often scored well, the brains behind it were shutting down.”

The findings indicate that although Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Grok may help students write, they also train the brain to disengage. Here’s what the researchers found:

* Brain Connectivity Declines with AI Use

* LLM Users Forget What They Just Wrote

* AI Use Disrupts Memory and Learning Pathways

* LLM Users Felt Detached From Their Work

* Switching from LLM to Brain Use Doesn’t Fully Restore Function

* Search Engine Users Showed Healthier Brain Engagement

* AI Dependency Leads to “Cognitive Offloading”

* Short-Term Gains, Long-Term Cognitive Debt

Over time, the test group showed a consistent decline in engagement, performance, and self-reported satisfaction.

Read the entire article here. I think this study is significant enough that teachers and parents should explain the risks of using AI in writing to their children.

Here are more reports:

• Effects of generative artificial intelligence on cognitive effort and task performance: study protocol for a randomized controlled experiment among college students (NIH)

• Does Using AI Affect Your Brain Performance? (Healthline)

• Experts warn AI is making your brain work less (BBC)

• Is AI dulling our minds? (Harvard Gazette)

• Over-Reliance on AI May Harm Your Cognitive Ability, Experts Warn (ScienceAlert)

• Is Generative AI Rewiring Our Brains? Here’s How It Happens (Psychology Today)

• AI use causing ‘boiling frog’ effect on human brain, study warns (Independent)

(Thanks to Leslie.)

DAILY NEWS HEADLINES:

• Oil and Gas Rise As Hormuz Tensions Flare Ahead of Iran Deadline (Bloomberg)

• Trump threatens Iran again as ceasefire deadline looms, U.S. gears up for peace talks (CNBC)

• Concerns have grown that the ceasefire between the US and Iran might not hold after the US said it had seized an Iranian cargo ship that tried to ‌run its blockade and Iran vowed to retaliate. (Reuters)

• Trump tells PBS News that ‘lots of bombs start going off’ if Iran ceasefire expires (PBS)

• The Forces of Scarcity Hitting Asia May Soon Spread Across the World (NYT)

• Trump’s Spider-Ridden Brain Is Cracking Under the Pressures of War (Esquire)

• Palantir Wants to Bring Back the Draft (Mother Jones)

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• Kash Patel files defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic (Politico)

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• Justices to Hear Case on Catholic Preschools That Reject Children of Gay Parents (NYT)

• Dad brains: How fatherhood rewires the male mind (BBC)

• Tim Cook Will Step Down as Apple C.E.O. (NYT)

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• MIT Study Finds Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline (Science, Public Health Policy & the Law)

• The Killer Robots Are Coming. The Battlefield Will Never Look the Same. (NYT)

• Chinese tech workers are starting to train their AI doubles–and pushing back (TR)

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