Did you know you can get a browser extension that removes AI searches from Google? That is, if you're using that browser, which many of us do. I'd be interested to know, of course, if your browser is offering similiar tools. This one purports to 'get more authentic search results by filtering out AI-generated content'. Ah, the relief. See, I spot AI content super fast, and it bugs me to tears. It's ruining the internet.

It's actually killing the internet. The internet used to be a place of creativity - if you grew up with it from it's inception, you'd know the wondrous landscapes that existed in digital form. Now it's all trying to sell you something, and the fastest tool to get that job done is to get AI to write it. In this world, everything becomes samey.

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As Hive account@tarazkp said in a post recently , just because you came up with the prompt doesn't mean the content AI writes in response is original. I think we've moved past that point. We all know if you use AI for anything that you're not using all of your brain.

And that is also directed at anyone who thinks they're being smart because they're a so called 'prompt engineer'. Bollocks to that - you're still not a genius. And you've probably used AI to write your book about it. Vomit.

An MIT study mid year seemed to suggest that by using AI all the time for tasks such as writing essays, you're going to end up in "cognitive debt." The study asked 54 adults to write three essays using either their own brains, a search engine, or AI. They then measured cognitive engagement, looking at electrical activity in the brain and through linguists looking at the essays. Surprise surprise, if you used AI, you're less cognitively engaged than the others. We know this from teaching pedagogy - if a student doesn't struggle with the tasks and cheats, they're not going to learn the content or do well at tests when they don't have the support of their crutch. Students in the AI group of the MIT study didn't feel ownership over their essays, and couldn't recall quotes from them.

When the students switched at the end, the AI to brain group performed worse. The authors claimed that this shows that AI does lead to cognitive debt - it's making us stupid.

It reminds me a little of how we've lost our navigational skills by using Google maps to find our way around, or using calculators instead of doing mental maths. Any muscle not used becomes atrophied. It's a no brainer.

So if you're using AI to write content on Hive, I'm likely going to think you're literally an idot.