A new MIT Media Lab study raises concerns that using ChatGPT may weaken critical thinking and brain engagement.
In the experiment, 54 participants aged 18–39 wrote SAT-style essays using either ChatGPT, Google, or no tools.
EEG scans showed that ChatGPT users had the lowest brain activity and grew increasingly passive, often defaulting to copy-pasting. Their essays lacked originality and emotional depth, earning criticism from educators.
In contrast, those who wrote unaided showed stronger neural activity linked to memory and creativity, while the Google group also performed well cognitively.
When the ChatGPT group was later asked to rewrite essays without AI, they remembered little, showing weak brainwave patterns—suggesting poor memory integration.
The study’s sample size is small. It’s not yet peer-reviewed. Lead author Nataliya Kosmyna published it early to warn about overreliance on AI, especially among children.
She’s now studying AI’s effects on programmers and says the early results are even more concerning. Experts emphasize the need for education and policy to ensure AI supports development rather than hinders it.
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How could we be surprised? If you let a machine do your thinking for you….you aren’t thinking. Is it not true that China and Russia score very high in education? Unlike the U.S.
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Using AI/ChatGPT will likely cause an influx of even more basement dwellers.
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Too, too right. My sister is HR, and she won’t hire young applicants who submit their information, etc., all done by AI. She tells them that this does not tell her anything about their own capabilities or thoughts. It’s so prevalent she says she can’t wait to retire.
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Seems like we don’t need a study to reveal this. AI – in my opinion – is primally frightening. Although AI is basing its responses and products on what is no doubt more data than any human has ever stored in one brain, but the ‘human element’ is what makes art, science, music, writing, and decision-making dynamic, unpredictable, and magnificent.
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That’s right-and what’s really bothersome is how easily people are sucked into because of convenience, and all the catchwords.
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~~>>… “A new MIT Media Lab study raises concerns that using ChatGPT may weaken critical thinking and brain engagement.”
Well, gee, who’d-a thunk it?!!
My Brother and I have an oft-used response for any time a person says something that is so obvious that only the deaf, dumb & blind couldn’t have figured it out beforehand. In situations like that, some people will respond with “Duh!”
However, my Brother and I are slightly more original than that. We will reply with this: “PEZ are hard to load!” (which essentially translates to: “Tell me something I don’t know!”), which is a reference to a Seinfeld episode.
~ D-FensDogG
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computers will be humanities undoing
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Jack, I don’t use AI for anything, period. I tried it a few times and realized it was the devil in disguise, even when using it for pictures. I prefer all my writing mistakes to anything AI can do for me. Good read.
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