In the midst of all debates about how AI affects jobs, science, the environment and everything else, there is a question of how large language models affect the people who use them directly.
A new study from MIT MEDIA LAB implies that the use of AI tools reduces brain activity in some ways, which is understandably alarming. But I think it’s only part of the story. How we use AI, like any other piece of technology, is what really matters.
Here’s what the researchers did to test AI’s effect on the brain: They asked 54 students to write essays using one of three methods: their own brains, a search engine or an AI assistant, specifically chatgpt.
Over three sessions, the students stuck with their assigned tools. Then they swapped, with AI users who go tool-free and the non-tool users who use AI.
The EEG headset measured their brain activity everywhere, and a group of people, plus a specially trained AI, scored the resulting essays. Researchers also interviewed each student about their experience.
As you would expect, the group that trusts their brains, the most commitment, best memory and the most sense of ownership of their work, showed, showing how much they could quote from them.
Those who used AI only had less impressive recall and brain connection, and often couldn’t even quote their own essays after a few minutes. When they wrote manually in the last test, they still underpinned.
The authors are careful to point out that the study has not yet been peer-reviewed. It was limited in scope, focused on essays writing, not any other cognitive activity. And EEG is, though fascinating, better at measuring the overall trends than to clarify accurate brain functions. Despite all these warnings, the message that most people would remove is that using AI can make you stupid.
But I would refresh it to consider if AI may not be stupid us as much as letting us opt out of thinking. Maybe the problem is not the tool, but how we use it.
Ai brains
If you use AI, think about how to use it. Did you make it write a letter or maybe brainstorm some ideas? Does it replace your thinking or supports it? There is a huge difference between outsourcing an essay and using an AI to help organize a messy idea.
Part of the problem is that “AI”, as we refer to it, is not literally intelligent, just a very sophisticated parrot with a huge library in memory. But this study did not ask the participants to reflect on this distinction.
The LLM-used group was encouraged to use AI, which they so appropriate, which probably did not mean thought-provoking and sensible use, just copying without reading, which is why context matters.
Because AI’s “cognitive costs” can be less tied to its presence and more for its purpose. If I use AI to rewrite a kettle plate -e -mail I don’t reduce my intelligence. Instead, I release bandwidth to things that actually require my thinking and creativity, such as coming up with this idea for an article or planning my weekend.
Of course, if I use AI to generate ideas that I never bother to understand or engage in, my brain probably takes a nap, but if I use it to streamline tired duties, I have more brain power when it matters.
Think about it like this. When I grew up, I had dozens of phone numbers, addresses, birthdays and other details of my friends and family remembered. I had most of it written down somewhere, but I rarely needed to consult it for those I was closest to. But I haven’t remembered a number of almost a decade.
I don’t even know my own landline number outside. Is it a sign I get dumber, or just proof that I’ve had a cell phone for a long time and stopped having to remember them?
We have read certain kinds of recalls to our devices that let us focus on different types of thinking. The skill does not remember, it is to know how to find, filter and apply information when we need it. It is sometimes called “External”, but it is really just to apply brain power to the place where needed.
That’s not to say that memory doesn’t matter anymore. But the weight has changed. Just as we do not get students to practice a long department by hand when they understand the concept, one day we can decide that it is more important to know what a good form letter looks like and how to ask an AI to write one than to prepare that line by scratch.
People always redefine intelligence. There are many ways to be smart, and knowing how to use tools and technology is an important goal for smarts. At one point it meant to be smart to know how to hardly flint, do Latin deceils or work with a slide.
Today, it may mean to be able to collaborate with machines without letting them do all thinking for you. Different tools prioritize different cognitive skills. And every time a new tool comes with, some people get that it will ruin us or replace us.
The printing press. The calculator. The Internet. Everyone was accused of making people lazy thinkers. Everyone turned out to be a great blessing for civilization (yes, the jury is still out on the internet).
With AI in the mixture, we probably lean harder in synthesis, discretion and emotional intelligence – the human parts of being human. We do not need the kind of scripture who are only good at writing down what people say; We need people who know how to ask better questions.
Knowing when to rely on a model and when to check. This means making a tool that is able to do the work to an asset that helps you make it better.
But none of it works if you treat AI as a vending machine for intelligence. Punch in a quick, wait for shine to fall out? No, that’s not how it works. And if that’s all you do with it, you don’t get dumber, you just never learned how to keep in touch with your own thoughts.
In the study, the LLM group’s lower essay ownership was not just about memory. It was about commitment. They did not feel connected to what they wrote because they were not the ones who wrote. It’s not about AI. It’s about using a tool to skip the hard part, which means skipping the learning.
However, the study is important. It reminds us that tools shape thinking. It pushes us if we use AI tools to expand our brains or to avoid using them. But demanding AI use makes people less intelligent is like saying that calculators made us bad for math. If we want to keep our brains sharp, the answer may not be avoided AI, but to be thoughtful about using it.
The future is not human brains versus ai. It’s about people who know how to think with AI and any other tool, and to avoid becoming someone who doesn’t bother to think at all. And it’s a test I still want to pass.
