ChatGPT May Be Eroding Critical Thinking Skills, According to a New MIT Study

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Randomized Shame

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https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/ (Archive)

Thought this was an interesting read.

Does ChatGPT harm critical thinking abilities? A new study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab has returned some concerning results.

The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-paste by the end of the study.

The paper suggests that the usage of LLMs could actually harm learning, especially for younger users. The paper has not yet been peer reviewed, and its sample size is relatively small. But its paper’s main author Nataliya Kosmyna felt it was important to release the findings to elevate concerns that as society increasingly relies upon LLMs for immediate convenience, long-term brain development may be sacrificed in the process.

“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,” she says. “Developing brains are at the highest risk.”

Read more: A Psychiatrist Posed As a Teen With Therapy Chatbots. The Conversations Were Alarming

Generating ideas

The MIT Media Lab has recently devoted significant resources to studying different impacts of generative AI tools. Studies from earlier this year, for example, found that generally, the more time users spend talking to ChatGPT, the lonelier they feel.

Kosmyna, who has been a full-time research scientist at the MIT Media Lab since 2021, wanted to specifically explore the impacts of using AI for schoolwork, because more and more students are using AI. So she and her colleagues instructed subjects to write 20-minute essays based on SAT prompts, including about the ethics of philanthropy and the pitfalls of having too many choices.

The group that wrote essays using ChatGPT all delivered extremely similar essays that lacked original thought, relying on the same expressions and ideas. Two English teachers who assessed the essays called them largely “soulless.” The EEGs revealed low executive control and attentional engagement. And by their third essay, many of the writers simply gave the prompt to ChatGPT and had it do almost all of the work. “It was more like, ‘just give me the essay, refine this sentence, edit it, and I’m done,’” Kosmyna says.

The brain-only group, conversely, showed the highest neural connectivity, especially in alpha, theta and delta bands, which are associated with creativity ideation, memory load, and semantic processing. Researchers found this group was more engaged and curious, and claimed ownership and expressed higher satisfaction with their essays.

The third group, which used Google Search, also expressed high satisfaction and active brain function. The difference here is notable because many people now search for information within AI chatbots as opposed to Google Search.

After writing the three essays, the subjects were then asked to re-write one of their previous efforts—but the ChatGPT group had to do so without the tool, while the brain-only group could now use ChatGPT. The first group remembered little of their own essays, and showed weaker alpha and theta brain waves, which likely reflected a bypassing of deep memory processes. “The task was executed, and you could say that it was efficient and convenient,” Kosmyna says. “But as we show in the paper, you basically didn’t integrate any of it into your memory networks.”

The second group, in contrast, performed well, exhibiting a significant increase in brain connectivity across all EEG frequency bands. This gives rise to the hope that AI, if used properly, could enhance learning as opposed to diminishing it.

Read more: I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT

Post publication

This is the first pre-review paper that Kosmyna has ever released. Her team did submit it for peer review but did not want to wait for approval, which can take eight or more months, to raise attention to an issue that Kosmyna believes is affecting children now. “Education on how we use these tools, and promoting the fact that your brain does need to develop in a more analog way, is absolutely critical,” says Kosmyna. “We need to have active legislation in sync and more importantly, be testing these tools before we implement them.”

Psychiatrist Dr. Zishan Khan, who treats children and adolescents, says that he sees many kids who rely heavily on AI for their schoolwork. “From a psychiatric standpoint, I see that overreliance on these LLMs can have unintended psychological and cognitive consequences, especially for young people whose brains are still developing,” he says. “These neural connections that help you in accessing information, the memory of facts, and the ability to be resilient: all that is going to weaken.”

Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper.

She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

Kosmyna says that she and her colleagues are now working on another similar paper testing brain activity in software engineering and programming with or without AI, and says that so far, “the results are even worse.” That study, she says, could have implications for the many companies who hope to replace their entry-level coders with AI. Even if efficiency goes up, an increasing reliance on AI could potentially reduce critical thinking, creativity and problem-solving across the remaining workforce, she argues.

Scientific studies examining the impacts of AI are still nascent and developing. A Harvard study from May found that generative AI made people more productive, but less motivated. Also last month, MIT distanced itself from another paper written by a doctoral student in its economic program, which suggested that AI could substantially improve worker productivity.

OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. Last year in collaboration with Wharton online, the company released guidance for educators to leverage generative AI in teaching. Last year in collaboration with Wharton online, the company released guidance for educators to leverage generative AI in teaching.

https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/your-brain-on-chatgpt/overview/ (Archive)

 
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5 dancing Israelis have been spotted after this news dropped
 
  • JFL
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definitely eroded mine already
 
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  • JFL
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Gpt is stupid depending on topic
 
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This is not a good post whatsoever. Op just links some articles and just dips. No opinion, no argumentation nothing. Just links and that's it. Is this fucking r/technology or r/politics? Where any faggot in search of internet points can just drop a link with a misleading title, gtfo and rack in the interner points? :trepidation:
 
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This is not a good post whatsoever. Op just links some articles and just dips. No opinion, no argumentation nothing. Just links and that's it. Is this fucking r/technology or r/politics? Where any faggot in search of internet points can just drop a link with a misleading title, gtfo and rack in the interner points? :trepidation:
I believe you're overthinking my intentions here. I just thought it was an interesting read and wanted to share it on a site that depends very heavily on ChatGPT. I did not write the title of the article nor did I share it with the intention of gaining any points.

I'm assuming your post is in reference to the post above you, but it was that user's opinion and not mine. I never claimed it was a good post, and neither are 80% of the posts on this site. If you want to complain about the quality of the post, you should feel free to do so, but making assumptions about my intentions is a waste of your time.
 
will read wait
 
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I believe you're overthinking my intentions here. I just thought it was an interesting read and wanted to share it on a site that depends very heavily on ChatGPT. I did not write the title of the article nor did I share it with the intention of gaining any points.

I'm assuming your post is in reference to the post above you, but it was that user's opinion and not mine. I never claimed it was a good post, and neither are 80% of the posts on this site. If you want to complain about the quality of the post, you should feel free to do so, but making assumptions about my intentions is a waste of your time.
Yeah I did want to answer, @MikeShinoda. I don't care about your intentions as I wasn't talking to you,but it seems that you're trying to mislead me with your answer. I mean, why the hell would you post this in this shithole, if it wasn't for internet points? You should've posted it in looksmaxxing or off-topic perhaps.
 
  • JFL
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Yeah I did want to answer, @MikeShinoda. I don't care about your intentions as I wasn't talking to you,but it seems that you're trying to mislead me with your answer. I mean, why the hell would you post this in this shithole, if it wasn't for internet points? You should've posted it in looksmaxxing or off-topic perhaps.
You're saying I'm being misleading because of the category I posted it in? It has nothing to do with Looksmaxxing and I don't personally like the Off Topic category. I feel like it fits perfectly under this category. ChatGPT is commonly used in education now, to make money, in people's work, in people's personal lives, etc. I guess it would fit under Off Topic, but most things fit under that category, and I'm just not personally fond of the category (I've only ever replied in that category when mentioned).

I'm not sure what kind of conversation you gain by assuming my intentions, is all.
 
This is not a good post whatsoever. Op just links some articles and just dips. No opinion, no argumentation nothing. Just links and that's it. Is this fucking r/technology or r/politics? Where any faggot in search of internet points can just drop a link with a misleading title, gtfo and rack in the interner points? :trepidation:
most of the time "opinions" and "argumentation" is just a bunch of misleading crap, sometimes literally confronting outcomes of the study itself, so its a good post, although paper itself is not the best.
 
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most of the time "opinions" and "argumentation" is just a bunch of misleading crap, sometimes literally confronting outcomes of the study itself, so its a good post, although paper itself is not the best.
Also doesn't really fully expand on the results either. I guess we'll find out the full results eventually.
 
most of the time "opinions" and "argumentation" is just a bunch of misleading crap, sometimes literally confronting outcomes of the study itself, so its a good post, although paper itself is not the best.
I don't give a fuck about any "most of the time", this is the bare minimum.

Post is shite. :trepidation:
 
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I don't give a fuck about any "most of the time", this is the bare minimum.

Post is shite. :trepidation:

IMG 20250702 000559
 
  • JFL
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BUT MUH MUH MUH MUH ITS REPLACING ALL OUR JOBS :feelstastyman::feelstastyman::feelstastyman::feelstastyman:
 
  • JFL
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:forcedsmile: Pathetic.


You don't have much to say don't you? Pulling up my Off-topic shitposts just proves you should've kept your mouth shut buddy.
thank you, dongle344, for reminding me that this forum is full of degenarates and ragebaiters and i have to leave it asap
 
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thank you, dongle344, for reminding me that this forum is full of degenarates and ragebaiters and i have to leave it asap
No problem, Mike shinoda. It looks like you're going through all of my posts right now huh? :trepidation:
Perhaps I hurt your feelings? :forcedsmile:
 
  • JFL
Reactions: Randomized Shame
No problem, Mike shinoda. It looks like you're going through all of my posts right now huh? :trepidation:
Perhaps I hurt your feelings? :forcedsmile:
i found title promising, but the thread itself was bad unfortunately
 
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i agree
 
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I mean shit yeah i dont even bother with coding anymore and it tracks my calories automatically macros and it can save ur data so he tells me how much kcal i need to burn today
How does it track your calories automatically?
 
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How does it track your calories automatically?
Gave him a prompt to be my fitness coach and he helps me and i just type in for example “250g raw chicken one wrap and portion of cucumber” and he adds it automatically and gives me recaps at the end od the day also while i unload my groceries i use the talk feature to just explain what i mean with “ one wrap” or which typa brands etc i got takes minutes off so easily
 
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this is like wanting to work out without picking up a dumbell and expecting results
 
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this is like wanting to work out without picking up a dumbell and expecting results
That's how I felt when I was reading the article lmfao. I was like "? What was the other possible outcome when you have it set up like this."
 
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grok explain in inflation terms
 
  • JFL
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