Using AI models to do your writing can make you dumb, a study has found. It found that students who use ChatGPT and other large language models (LLM) to write essays had poorer memory, reduced brain activity and weaker engagement compared to those who didn't rely on AI for their work. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab carried out experiments to gauge how the brain responded in 54 students. They were made to write essays, and their electrical activity in the brain was measured. They were divided into three groups - one that used ChatGPT, another that used Google and the third had no external help. They published their study in the paper 'Your brain on ChatGPT'.

Researchers checked their performance and how their brains underwent slight changes over four months. They noticed a "measurable impact" on the group that used ChatGPT to write the essays. They also registered a "likely decrease in learning skills" of the AI group.

Using ChatGPT did make their work look impressive, but in the long run, they "performed worse than their counterparts in the brain-only group at all levels: neural, linguistic, scoring across a four-month period."

ChatGPT writers did not use their brains as much

Overall, they concluded that people who depended on ChatGPT for writing used their brains less. Since they didn't write their essays, they had a hard time recalling what they wrote, who they quoted, etc. In fact, they did not feel any ownership of their content because it was completely AI-generated.

"Moderate engagement" was seen in those who used Google to write their essays. The group that worked without any help had high brain activity and used original ideas in their content.

When the third group was asked to use ChatGPT to write another essay, their brain activity continued to soar, as measured by electroencephalogram scans (EEGs).

This was probably because instead of completely relying on ChatGPT to do the work, they tried combining it with their own knowledge. However, when the ChatGPT group was asked to write essays on their own, their brain activity continued to fall.

Source: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Wion