The Dangers of Artificial Intelligence: ChatGPT Use Linked to Stupidity

Using ChatGPT? This tool could make you stupid, experts warn. Brain scans show how using AI undermines critical thinking skills.

Millions of students around the world use this AI tool every day, writes the Daily Mail. But if you regularly turn to ChatGPT, a new study may raise concerns. Scientists from the MIT Media Lab have warned that using artificial intelligence can affect your ability to learn, think, and remember. In their study, the team measured the electrical activity in the brains of 54 students over several essay-writing sessions.

One group used ChatGPT, another used Google, and the last group had no external help at all. The results showed that students who used large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT to write essays showed worse memory, decreased brain activity, and lower engagement than those who used other methods.

"As the educational impact of LLM use is only beginning to be felt in the general population, in this study we demonstrate the pressing issue of the likely decline in learning skills based on our findings," the researchers explained.

"The use of LLM," the study authors say, "had a measurable impact on the participants, and although the benefits were initially clear, as we demonstrated over 4 months, the LLM group performed worse than their brain-only counterparts on all levels: neural, linguistic, evaluative."

In their study, the team set out to understand the "cognitive costs" of universities like ChatGPT.

"With today's widespread adoption of LLM products like OpenAI's ChatGPT, people and businesses are engaging and using LLM on a daily basis," explain the authors of the study, published online on arXiv. "Like any tool, it has its own set of benefits and limitations. This study aims to elucidate the cognitive costs of using LLM in an educational context when writing essays."

Participants were divided into three groups - ChatGPT, Google and Brain-only - and asked to write essays while wearing an electroencephalographic (EEG) device to record their brain activity. Well, the results showed that the use of artificial intelligence had a "measurable impact", with these participants experiencing "a probable decline in learning skills".

Although "the benefits were initially clear," within four months this group "performed worse than their brain-only counterparts on all levels: neural, linguistic, evaluative."

Meanwhile, Google users showed "moderate engagement," and the group that had no external input showed greater brain activity and original ideas in their content. If these students had tried using ChatGPT, their brain activity would still have increased.

The researchers speculated that this was because students would be trying to combine the new tool with what they already knew.

While the group using ChatGPT still showed less engagement even when they were tasked with writing the essay themselves.

LLM users were able to answer questions with "less effort" than the search engine group, users admitted. However, this convenience came at a cognitive cost, making users less likely to critically evaluate LLM outputs or "opinions" (probabilistic answers based on training data sets).

"This highlights an interesting evolution of the echo chamber effect: instead of disappearing, it has adapted to how users perceive it through algorithmically processed content," the researchers note.