Honestly, it's so tempting, right? You're working on an essay, writing an email or solving a problem, and AI gives you a polished answer before you can even finish typing or just thinking. But then, are we really doing the work or just letting AI do it for us and in doing so just being super lazy.
MIT ran a study to find out about this where they divided 54 participants into three groups and asked them to write essays using ChatGPT, Google Search and No Tools.
At the end of the trial they found that the ChatGPT group had the lowest brain engagement. By the end, many were just copy-pasting without absorbing anything, this means that they were not learning anything new from the data they achieved from the AI and are just becoming less cognitive.
The researchers call it cognitive offloading, relying so much on AI that we stop using our brains to process and retain information. This is concerning because over time, this could weaken critical thinking and problem-solving skills, especially for young developing minds where the growth of the Brain is an important aspect of their individuality and personality.
But wait, it's not all bad. If we really understand these pitfalls, we can learn to leverage AI and in doing so we can use AI to furtherour own knowledge and the thirst for knowledge. Just like calculators didn't make us bad at math, they helped us tackle harder problems, AI can do the same.
You can now write hundreds of essays, and with extra time, you can push your creativity, dive deeper into ideas, and refine your thinking. It all comes down to how motivated you are to push your limits in a world where everything is just a prompt away.
