Is ChatGPT *really* rotting anyone's brain?
Let's not jump to conclusions quite yet!
This study from MIT, "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task", is making the rounds lately because of course it's about AI and its possible detrimental effects on us humans. But not so fast, it's a very small sample set in a very constrained (i.e. a lab) environment that nobody works in in reality.
Anne-Laure Le Cunff breaks it down over at Ness Labs in "Is ChatGPT really rotting our brains?" She provides tips on how to not let this happen which, frankly, are obvious but I guess still need to be pointed out. I'm really tired of sensational reporting on AI topics (like this terrible bit from Jesse Singal). For some sane reporting on AI from Cal Newport see this article. I love his views on this stuff.
Listen, if Cal Newport is using AI to help with his work (not coincidentally I expect with the methods Anne-Laure describes) I'm pretty sure any of us is capable of using generative AI as a valuable tool. I say a bit cheekily because Cal is renowned for eschewing things like social media. But in that New Yorker article he provides a very solid base of evidence that these tools can be very useful for the writer. They can also be useful for students, professors, software developers, and a bunch of other people.
