philip lelyveld The world of entertainment technology

AI Is Making Us Dumber, MIT Researchers Find

... The study... consisted of three cohorts: one group that used only their brain, one that used a search engine, and one that used a large language model (LLM) like ChatGPT. ...

The measurements consisted of electroencephalography (EEG) to measure participants’ brain activity and to see how their neurons activated during the essay writing task. ...

Critically, use of the AI tools correlated with poorer results, both in brain activity and the other tests. ...

Study subjects who went from the LLM to the brain-only group showed weaker neural connectivity and “under-engagement of alpha and beta networks,” the researchers write. Subjects who went the other way, from the brain-only group to the LLM group, showed higher memory recall and re-engagement of activity in certain parts of the brain. ...

The English teachers reported that it was obvious which essays were written by AI because they were “near-perfect” in their use of language and structure, and for how devoid they were of any personal touch. “We, as English teachers, perceived these essays as ‘soulless’, in a way, as many sentences were empty with regard to content and essays lacked personal nuances,” they wrote, according to the study. ...

See the full story here: https://www.hpcwire.com/2025/07/19/ai-is-making-us-dumber-mit-researchers-find/