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Relying on artificial intelligence chatbot chat Gpt, which helps you write essays, can be linked to cognitive decline, new research reveals.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Technology Media Lab studied the effects of ChatGpt on the brain by asking three groups of people to write an essay. One group relied on ChatGPT, one group relied on search engines, one group had no external resources at all.
The researchers then monitored the brain using EEG, which measures electrical activity.
The team found that people who rely on ChatGpt (also known as the large-scale language model) do not remember having “weakest” brain connections and highlighting potential concerns about cognitive decline in frequent users.
“For four months (large language model) users have consistently reduced performance at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels,” the study reads. “These results raise concerns about the long-term impact of trust (a large-scale language model) on education and underscore the need to explore the role of AI in learning more deeply.”
This study found that those who did not use external resources to write their essays had “the most powerful and most distributed networks.”
ChatGpt is “efficient and convenient,” but those who use it to write essays are not “integrated” into memory networks, leading author Nataliya Kosmyna told Time Magazine.
Kosmyna said she is particularly concerned about the effects of ChatGpt on children whose brains are still developing.
“What motivated me to put it out right now before waiting for a full peer review was that there were policymakers who decided to ‘do kindergarten’ in six or eight months,” Cosmina said. “I think it’s absolutely bad and harmful. Brain development is the most risky thing.”
However, others, including President Donald Trump and members of his administration, are less concerned about the effects of Chatgupt on brain development.
Trump signed an executive order in April to promote the integration of AI into American schools.
“In order for the United States to remain a global leader in this technological revolution, we must provide young people in the country with the opportunity to develop the skills and understanding they need to create using and create the next generation of AI technologies,” the order reads. “By promoting AI competency, students will acquire the basic knowledge and skills needed to adapt and thrive in a digital society more and more.”
Kosmyna said her team is currently working on another study comparing brain activity between people who are not using AI with software engineers and programmers.
“The outcome was even worse,” she told Time Magazine.
The Independent has reached out to Openai, which runs ChatGpt, for comment.
