This is Your Brain on…AI

A new study emerging from MIT’s Media Lab shows that ChatGPT, and other LLM-adjacent interactive solutions, could be actively harming our critical thinking skills.

The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” 

The paper suggests that the usage of LLMs could harm learning, especially for younger users. However, the paper has not yet been peer reviewed, and its sample size is relatively small.

But its paper’s main author Nataliya Kosmyna felt it was important to release the findings to elevate concerns that “as society increasingly relies upon LLMs for immediate convenience, long-term brain development may be sacrificed in the process.”

“What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6-8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental,” she said. “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”

Kosmyna said that she and her colleagues are now working on another similar paper testing brain activity in software engineering and programming with or without AI, and explained that so far, “the results are even worse.” That study, she said, could have implications for the many companies who hope to replace their entry-level coders with AI. Even if efficiency goes up, an increasing reliance on AI could potentially reduce critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving across the remaining workforce, she argued.

“Education on how we use these tools and promoting the fact that your brain does need to develop in a more analog way, is absolutely critical,” said Kosmyna. “We need to have active legislation in sync and more importantly, be testing these tools before we implement them.”

Another study earlier this year found similar results. A  paper by researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found that higher dependence on AI tools at work were linked to reduced critical thinking skills. In their words, outsourcing thoughts to AI leaves people’s minds “atrophied and unprepared,” which can “result in the deterioration of cognitive faculties that ought to be preserved.”

Other studies looking at the impact of AI technology on our everyday life are in their early stages and ongoing.

The takeaway from this recent research is that AI’s impact on the brain can be beneficial or detrimental, depending on how it’s used. When utilized correctly, AI can act as an amplifier, boosting cognitive capabilities instead of diminishing them.

Humans should not surrender their intellectual autonomy by letting devices think for them, rather than with them.