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MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

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Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#121

Post by chaps »

stripe_away wrote: post #101
sudosteph wrote: post #88

Meanwhile my main use cases for AI outside of work: - Learning how to solder - Learning how to use a multimeter - Learning to build basic circuits on breadboxes - learning about solar panels, mppt, battery management system, and different variations of li-on batteries - learning about LoRa band / meshtastic / how to build my own antenna And every single one of these things I've learned I've also applied practically t…

and to be blunt, I learned similar things building analog synths, before the dawn of LLMs. Like you, I don't like watching videos. However, the web also has text, the same text used to train the LLMs that you used. > When something doesn't work like I thought it would, AI helps me understand where I may have went wrong, I ask it a ton of questions, and I try again until I understand how it works and how to prove it.…

  > However, the web also has text, the same text used to train the LLMs that you used.
The person you're responding to isn't denying that other people learn from those. But they're explicit that having the text isn't helpful either:

  > I have a massive textbook about electronics, but it doesn't help me break down different paths to what I actually want to do.

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#122

Post by grugagag »

grim_io wrote: post #63

I have never used LLM's to write essays, so I can't comment on that. What I can comment on is how valuable and energizing it is for me to cooperatively code with LLM's using agents. I find it sad to hear when someone finds this experience disappointing, and I wonder what could go wrong to make it so.

I don’t thik someone finds this experience dissapointing but harmful for cognition, probably in the long run as the cognition ‘muscle’ athrophies in some regions as I see it. Remains to be seen how it pans out. However, how much would you be willing to pay for LLMs before you decide it’s not worth it? It is unexpensive at this stage but this won’t last.

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#123

Post by latexr »

Mistletoe wrote: post #75
nerpderp82 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it matter? Some will become Eloy and some Trogs.

If you are referencing The Time Machine, I remember reading a neat comic book version of the book when I was a kid. Sometimes I feel we are quite close to having Eloi and Murlocks evolving already. >the gentle, childlike Eloi and the subterranean, predatory Morlocks. Seems like a nice metaphor for the current two political parties we are provided with.

> a neat comic book version

Wikipedia lists several. Do you recall which you read?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine#Comics

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#124

Post by giancarlostoro »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #62

Personally, I don't think you should ever allow the LLM to write for you or to modify / update anything you're writing. You can use it to get feedback when editing, to explore an idea-space, and to find any topical gaps. But write everything yourself! It's just too easy to give in and slowly let the LLM take over your brain. This article is focused on essay writing, but I swear I've experienced cognitive decline when…

When Firefox added autocorrect, and I started using it, I made it a point to learn what it was telling me was correct, so I could write more accurately. I have since become drastically better at spelling, I still goof, I'm even worse when pronouncing words I've read but never heard. English is my second language mind you.

I think any developer worth their salt would use LLMs to learn quicker, and arrive to conclusions quicker. There's some programming problems I run into when working on a new project that I've run into before but cannot recall what my last solution was and it is frustrating, I could see how an LLM could help with such a resolution coming back quicker. Sometimes its 'first time setup' stuff that you have not had to do for like 5 years, so you forget, and maybe you wrote it down on a wiki, two jobs ago, but an LLM could help you remember.

I think we need to self-evaluate how we use LLMs so that they help us become better Software Engineers, not worse ones.

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#125

Post by jajko »

johnisgood wrote: post #106
jajko wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misuse or not, who cares about labeling. Internet was supposed to be this wonderful free place with all information available and unbiased, not the cesspool of scams and tracking that makes 1984 look like a fairytale for children. Atomic energy was supposed to free mankind from everlasting struggle for energy dependency, end wars and whatnot. LLMs we supposed to be X and not Y and used as Z and not BBCCD. For what po…

It works for me, so I would rather not have it taken away from me. Take it away from people who misuse it. If it is a human nature issue (with which I agree), then we are in a deep shit and this is why we cannot have nice things. Educate, and if that fails, then punish those who "misuse" it. I do not have a better idea. It works for me quite well for coding, and it will continue to work as long as it is not going to…

Nobody is taking it away from you, but as we seem to agree that ship has sailed for some deep waters, nobody is backpedaling back.

Well cheers to even bigger gap between elite who can afford good education and upbringing and cheap crappy rest. Number of scifi novels come to mind where poor semi-mindless masses are governed by 'educated' elites. I always thought how such society must have screwed up badly in the past to end up like that. Nope, road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions and small little steps which seem innocent or even beneficial on their own, in their time.

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#127

Post by nzach »

> 0% of LLM users could produce a correct quote, while most Brain-only and Search users could

I think a better interpretation would be to say that LLMs gives people the ability to "filter out" certain tasks in our brains. Maybe a good parallel would be to point out that some drivers are able to drive long distances on what is essentially an "auto-pilot". When this happens they are able to drive correctly but don't really register every single action they've taken during the process.

In this study you are asking for information that is irrelevant (to the participant). So, I think it is expected that people would filter it out if given the chance.

[edit] Forgot to link the related xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1414/

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#129

Post by AnimalMuppet »

quotemstr wrote: post #103
stego-tech wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a pretty spicy take for first thing in the morning. The confidence with which you assert a repeatedly proven facile argument is…unenviable. “Fractal wrongness,” I’ve seen it called. We have decades of research - brain scans, studies, experiments, imaging, stimuli responses, etc - proving that when a human no longer has to think about performing a skill, that skill immediately begins to atrophy and the brain ad…

Learning and habit formation are not "reprogramming". If you define "reprogramming" as anything that updates neuron weights, the term encompasses all of life and becomes useless. My point is that I don't see LLM's effect on the brain as being anything more than the normal experience we have of living and that the level of drama the headline suggests is unwarranted. I don't believe in infohazards. Might they result in…

So what is, the skill in question is thinking critically. Letting that atrophy is kind of a bigger deal than if our paper map reading skills atrophy.

Now, you could argue that, when we use AI, critical thinking skills are more important, because we have to check the output of a tool that is quite prone to error. But in actual use, many people won't do that. We'll be back at "Computers Do Not Lie" (look for the song on Youtube if you're not familiar with it), only with a much higher error rate.

Re: MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

#130

Post by lo_zamoyski »

Why is this surprising? "Use it or lose it" may be a cliche, but it's true; if you don't keep some faculty conditioned, it gets "rusty". That's the general principle, so it would be surprising if this were an exception.

The age of social media and constant distraction already atrophies the ability to maintain sustained focus. Who reads a book these days, never mind a thick book requiring struggle to master? That requires immersion, sustained engagement, persevering through discomfort, and denying yourself indulgence in all sorts of temptations and enticements to get a cheap fix. It requires postponed gratification, or a gratification that is more subtle and measured and piecemeal rather than some sharp spike. We become conditioned in Pavlovian fashion, more habituated to such behavior, the more we engage in such behavior.

The reliance on AI for writing is partly rooted in the failure to recognize that writing is a form of engagement with the material. Clear writing is a way of developing knowledge and understanding. It helps uncover what you understand and what you don't. If you can't explain something, you don't know it well enough to have clear ideas about it. What good does an AI do you - you as a knowing subject - if it does the "writing" for you? You, personally, don't become wiser or better. You don't become fit by watching others exercise.

This isn't to say AI has no purpose, but our attitude toward technology is often irresponsible. We think that if we have the power to do something, we are missing out by not using it. This is boneheaded. The ultimate measure is whether the technology is good for you in some particular use case. Sometimes, we make prudential allowances for practical reasons. There can be a place for AI to "write" for us, but there are plenty of cases where it is simply senseless to use. You need to be prudent, or you end up abusing the technology.

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