ChatGPT use linked to cognitive decline: MIT research

[Ponietz]

We barreling towards our own incapacitation.

https://www.krqe.com/news/national/chatgpt-use-linked-to-cognitive-decline-mit-research

The findings suggest that using LLMs can harm a user’s cognitive function over time, especially in younger users. It comes as educators continue to navigate teaching when artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly accessible for cheating.

“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,” the study’s main author Nataliya Kosmyna told Time magazine. “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”

However, using AI in education doesn’t appear to be slowing down. In April, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that aims to incorporate AI into U.S. classrooms.

“The basic idea of this executive order is to ensure that we properly train the workforce of the future by ensuring that school children, young Americans, are adequately trained in AI tools, so that they can be competitive in the economy years from now into the future, as AI becomes a bigger and bigger deal,” White House staff secretary Will Scharf said at the time.

[Journeyman]

1. Well, yeah. Most who use a calculator get slower at doing math in their head . . .

[Ponietz]

2. AI's deleterious effects will be far more comprehensive

They discovered that subjects who used ChatGPT over a few months had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels,” according to the study.

[Irish_Dem]

3. So robots will be the brains on the planet

Use it or lose it.

As AI takes over human cognitive functioning, humans will lose those abilities.

What will be the purpose of humans then?

[anciano]

4. I have a more optimistic viewpoint...

I believe that generative AI tools like ChatGPT have the potential to enhance our critical thinking abilities. As we continue the transition into a futuristic cybernetic era, I now believe it is feasible that technology can evolve to the point where AI capabilities can be merged with human consciousness, and as a result humans can be elevated to a level of super intelligence and analytical power that we cannot yet fully comprehend.

[-misanthroptimist]

5. That could have happened...maybe.

We'll never know, though, since CC will end civilization as we know it in just a few decades. Maybe sooner.

[-misanthroptimist]

6. I used ChatGPT once

After arguing it into a corner on cosmology (a topic with which I am somewhat familiar, but not remotely an expert), I decided that AI is far from prime time. Since then, I've avoided AI like the plague.

[TheProle]

7. The research is important

but the potential slippery slope of amplifying test results before peer-review bugs me.