Does AI Make You Dumber?

A popular MIT study says ChatGPT is ruining our brains. It sounds terrifying. But it’s also probably wrong. Here’s why…

According to the study, people who used ChatGPT to write instead of doing it themselves experienced 47% less brain activity than the group that wasn’t using any tools.

But that conclusion skips over a few key details:

• The participants were simply told to produce an essay, not to think about the essay, defend the essay, explain the essay or even care about the quality of the essay.
• There were zero real-world stakes for the essays. You could have mashed the keyboard for 30 minutes and still received credit as having written an “essay.”
• The study was run on 54 college students… you know, people who love writing an extra essay any chance they get.

So, of course the people with ChatGPT used their brain less. Shocker.

My take: what’s happening is the same thing that happens with every new revolutionary piece of technology—we stop exercising some mental muscles because the tool makes that particular task easier.

Think about it: GPS weakened our sense of direction, calculators slowed our mental math, and the internet made our memory lazier.

But no one says you’re an idiot for Googling who won the 2002 World Cup. Now you can use that mental capacity for something useful, like calculus or remembering your anniversary.

So the question isn’t: “Will AI ruin our brains?”

The real question is: “What thinking do we still need to protect—and what are we better off outsourcing?”

See you Monday,
Mark Manson

#1 New York Times Bestselling Author
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