ALARMING NEW RESEARCH SHOWS PRECISELY HOW CHATGPT AFFECTS OUR BRAINS
ChatGPT has integrated artificial intelligence into everyday life, as individuals utilise it to create dating profiles, plagiarise assignments, and revise their resumes. But has it gone overboard? Since OpenAI launched its chatbot, individuals have been cautious about its abilities and implications for the future. While it's useful for assisting in crafting responses to passive-aggressive work emails, researchers have recently reached some concerning conclusions regarding its impact on our brains.
The paper began by dividing 54 people between the ages of 18 to 39 in Boston, into three groups and asking them to write numerous SAT essays over four months. One group used ChatGPT, another Google’s search engine, and the third wasn't allowed to use either when writing the essays. Researchers then hooked up the groups to an electroencephalogram (EEG) to measure and record the electrical activity in their brains.
Among the three groups, ChatGPT users demonstrated the least brain engagement and also "consistently showed inferior performance at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels." It also discovered that the users grew increasingly lazy as the essays progressed, leading them to copy and paste text directly from ChatGPT by the trial's conclusion.
When ChatGPT users were instructed to compose essays solely using their own cognitive abilities, they exhibited diminished alpha and beta connectivity, reflecting a lack of engagement. So, what does this mean for us?
Lead author Nataliya Kosmyna stated that the use of AI could have adverse effects on long-term brain development. “What genuinely inspired me to release it now instead of waiting for complete peer review is my concern that in 6-8 months, a policymaker may conclude, ‘let’s implement GPT kindergarten.’” "I believe that would be extremely harmful and negative," she stated, according to TIME. "Brains that are still developing are at the greatest risk."
The EEGs indicated that the AI group exhibited poor executive control and attention engagement, and by the third essay, they had essentially permitted ChatGPT to complete all of the work for them."It was more like, ‘just give me the essay, refine this sentence, edit it, and I’m done, '” Kosmyna explained.
On the other hand, individuals who could not utilise any tools to assist with their essays exhibited the greatest neural connectivity, particularly in regions related to creative ideation, memory workload, and semantic processing. They were additionally more interested and inquisitive.
The Google Search team showed active brain activity, while only the AI users exhibited poor results overall.
They also couldn’t recall the topics of the essays, as Kosmyna stated: “The assignment was completed, and one could say it was effective and practical. However, as we demonstrate in the paper, you essentially failed to incorporate any of it into your memory networks.
Regarding the potential effects on students and young minds, they stated: “Teaching how to utilise these tools, and emphasising that brain development requires a more analogue approach, is essential.” “We need to have active legislation in sync and, more importantly, be testing these tools before we implement them.”
