AI chatbots could be making you stupider

As large language models take over more and more cognitive tasks, researchers are warning this mental outsourcing comes with a cost.

When research scientist Nataliya Kosmyna was looking for interns, she noticed that cover letters she received were suspiciously similar. They were long, polished and after introductions would often jump to an abstract and arbitrary connection to her work.

It was obvious to her that applicants were using large language models (LLMs) – a form of artificial intelligence that powers chatbots such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Claude – to write the letters.

At the same time, during lessons on campus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Kosmyna, who studies the interaction between humans and computers, noticed that numerous students were forgetting content more easily compared to a few years ago.

With the increasing reliance on LLMs, she had a hunch that this could be affecting her students' cognition and sought to understand more.

The concern that researchers like Kosmyna have is that if we become too reliant on AI, it could affect the language we use and even our ability to do basic cognitive tasks. There is now a growing body of research suggesting that this "cognitive offloading" to AI can have a corrosive effect on our mental abilities. The consequences could be alarming and may even contribute to cognitive decline.

It's well known that the tools we use can change how we think. With the advent of the internet for instance, tasks that once required deep research could be found by plugging a simple query into a search box. As the use of search engines increased, research found we became less likely to remember details, something dubbed "the Google effect". (Some argue, however, the internet also serves as an external memory system that frees up our brain to do other tasks.)

But there is now growing alarm that as we offload even more of our thinking to LLMs and other forms of AI, the effects on our memories and ability to solve problems could get worse. Artificial intelligence tools can write convincing poetry, give financial advice and provide companionship. Students are increasingly outsourcing their own work to AI tools as well.

Studies have already shown that young people might be particularly vulnerable to the negative effects that using AI can have on key cognitive skills like critical thinking. Kosmyna, however, wanted to dig deeper into the potential effects.

Reduced mental effort

She and her colleagues at MIT Media Lab recruited 54 students to write short essays and split them into three groups. One was instructed to use ChatGPT. A second could use Google search, with AI-generated summaries turned off. The third didn't use technology. Each student's brainwaves were measured while they worked.

The essay topics were deliberately open-ended, meaning little research was needed for the task, with prompts including questions around loyalty, happiness or our daily life choices.

The results haven't been published in a scientific journal yet, but they were none-the-less eye-opening, according to Kosmyna. Those who used their own minds had a brain that was "on fire", showing widespread activity across many parts of the brain, she says. The search engine-only group still showed strong activity in the visual parts of the brain, but the ChatGPT group showed notably less brain........

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