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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

#51

Post by ceejayoz »

infecto wrote: post #46

Everyone is different. I don’t have a good grasp on the distribution of HN readers these days but I know for myself as a heavy user of LLMs, I am not sold on this for myself. I am asking more questions than ever. I use it for proof reading and editing. But I can see the risk as a software engineer. I really appreciate tools like cursor, I give it bite size chunks and review. Using tools like Claude code though. It be…

> I am asking more questions than ever.

Wouldn't that be the expected result here? Less knowledge, more questions?

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

#52

Post by tiborsaas »

amelius wrote: post #39

Isn't intelligence -> asking the right questions? Rather than coming up with the right answers?

It's both and they form a feedback loop. You come up with a problem (question) and you solve the problem which might lead to more questions. So problem solving and reflecting back on it are both building blocks of intelligence.

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

#53

Post by bookofjoe »

pjio wrote: post #17

First step out of this mess: Use AI only to proof read or get a second opinion, but not to write the whole thing.

That ship has sailed.

>Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College. ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.

https://archive.ph/ZKZiY

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

#54

Post by xnorswap »

infecto wrote: post #46

Everyone is different. I don’t have a good grasp on the distribution of HN readers these days but I know for myself as a heavy user of LLMs, I am not sold on this for myself. I am asking more questions than ever. I use it for proof reading and editing. But I can see the risk as a software engineer. I really appreciate tools like cursor, I give it bite size chunks and review. Using tools like Claude code though. It be…

> I am asking more questions than ever.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but "asking more questions" could be evidence of cognitive decline if you're having to ask more questions than ever!

It's easy to twist evidence to fit biases, which is why I'd hold judgement to better evidence comes through.

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

#55

Post by CuriouslyC »

This does not mesh with my personal experience. I find that AI reduces task noise that prevents me from getting in the flow of high level creative/strategic thinking. I can just plan algorithms/models/architectures and very quickly validate, test, iterate and always work at a high level while the AI handles syntax and arcane build processes.

Maybe it's my natural ADHD tendencies, but having that implementation/process noise removed from my workflow has been transformational. I joke about having gone super saiyan, but it's for real. In the last month, I've gotten 3 papers in pre-print ready state, I'm working on a new model architecture that I'm about to test on ARC-AGI, and I've gotten ~20 projects to initial release or very close (several of which concretely advance SOTA).

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

#56

Post by nerpderp82 »

Mistletoe wrote: post #31

The future for humans worries me a lot. What evolutionary pressures will exist to keep us intelligent? We are already seeing IQ drop alarmingly across the world. Now AI comes in from the top rope with the steel chair? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/3283/

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

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

#57

Post by footy »

johnisgood wrote: post #48
footy wrote: post #34

there's going to be an avalanche of dementia for the generations that outsource all their thinking to LLMs

IMO that is a misuse of LLMs. You are not supposed to outsource your thinking. You need to be part of the whole process, incl. the architectural design. I am, and I got far with LLMs (Claude mostly, not much with GPT). I use GPT for personal stuff or ramblings, not for coding. There will always be people who misuse something, but we should not hurt those who do not. Same with drugs. There are functional junkies who k…

sure, we may call that a misuse. But there are already people using them this way, and they're marketed this way, and I was not making a point about the correctness of using them this way---just observing that this is going to have far-reaching consequences.

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

#58

Post by tomrod »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #44
tomrod wrote: post #20

A few things to note. 1. This is arxiv - before publication or peer review. Grain of salt.[0] 2. 18 participants per cohort 3. 54 participants total Given the low N and the likelihood that this is drawn from 18-22 year olds attending MIT, one should expect an uphill battle for replication and for generalizability. Further, they are brain scanning during the experiment, which is an uncomfortable/out-of-the-norm experi…

>These 54 participants were between the ages of 18 to 39 years old (age M = 22.9, SD = 1.69) and all recruited from the following 5 universities in greater Boston area: MIT (14F, 5M), Wellesley (18F), Harvard (1N/A, 7M, 2 Non-Binary), Tufts (5M), and Northeastern (2M) (Figure 3). 35 participants reported pursuing undergraduate studies and 14 postgraduate studies. 6 participants either finished their studies with MSc…

> I would describe the study size and composition as a limitation, and a reason to pursue a larger and more diverse study for confirmation, rather than a reason to expect an "uphill battle" for replication and so forth.

Maybe. I believe we both agree it is a critical gap in the research as-is, but whether it is a neutral item or an albatross is an open question. Much of psychology and neuroscience research doesn't replicate, often because of the limited sample size / composition as well as unrealistic experimental design. Your approach of deepening and broadening the demographics would attack generalizability, but not necessarily replication.

My prior puts this on an uphill battle.

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

#59

Post by boesboes »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #32
jennyholzer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think developers who use "AI" coding assistants are putting their careers at risk.

The future is increased productivity. If someone can outproduce you if they use AI, then they will take your job.

After working with claude code for a few months, I am not worried.

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

#60

Post by j45 »

The gap i see is the definition of "AI use" is not clearly delineated between passive (usage similar to consumption) vs active.

Passive AI use where you let something else think for your will obvious cause cognitive decline.

Active use of AI as a thought partner, and learning as you go yourself seem to feel different.

The issue with studying 18-22 year olds is their prefrontal cortex (a center of logic, will power, focus, reasoning, discipline) is not fully developed until 26. But that probably doesn't matter if the study is trying to make a point about technology.

The art of learning fake information from real could also increase cognitive capacity.

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