Bad brainwaves: ChatGPT makes you stupid
Bad brainwaves: ChatGPT makes you stupid
In a new study, MIT Media Lab measured 55 people over four months on how well they could write an essay — either with ChatGPT, with a search engine, or just their unassisted brain. The researchers …
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Similar criticisms have probably been leveled at many other technologies in the past, such as computers in general, typewriters, pocket calculators etc. It is true that the use of these tools and technologies has probably contributed to a decline in the skills required for activities such as memorization, handwriting or mental calculation. However, I believe there is an important difference to chatbots: While typewriters (or computers) usually produce very readable text (much better than most people's handwriting), pocket calculators perform calculations just fine and information from a reputable source retrieved online isn't any less correct than one that had been memorized (probably more so), the same couldn't be said about chatbots and LLMs. They aren't known to produce accurate or useful output in a reliable way - therefore many of the skills that are being lost by relying on them might not be replaced with something better.
Similar criticisms have probably been leveled at many other technologies in the past, such as computers in general, typewriters, pocket calculators etc.
Show me a study where they find typewriter users "consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels"
No, but it does mean that little girls no longer learn to write greeting cards to their grandmothers in beautiful feminine handwriting. It's important to note that I was part of Generation X and, due to innate clumsiness (and being left-handed), I didn't have pretty handwriting even before computers became the norm. But I was berated a lot for that, and computers supposedly made everything worse. It was a bit of a moral panic.
But I admit that this is not comparable to chatbots.
… what.
This article is about a scientific study that shows clear differences in brain activity between people who used LLMs and those who didn't. If you can't tell the difference between that and whatever the hell you're going on about, you might want to cut down on the LLM usage.
Maybe do some self reflection first? You're missing their point and it's bigger than Saturn.
Maybe explain to me how people baselessly criticising technology (like typewriters for example) for making people dumber is the same as a scientific study showing differences in EEG activity?
Or you could read the entirety of the first comment in this thread and see how it was not saying that. Notice the part that begins, "However, I believe there is an important difference to chatbots..."
It's not. Read again.
LOL - you might not want to believe that, but there is nothing to cut down. I actively steer clear of LLMs because I find them repulsive (being so confidently wrong almost all the time).
Nevertheless, there will probably be some people who claim that thanks to LLMs we no longer need the skills for language processing, working memory, or creative writing, because LLMs can do all of this much better than humans (just like calculators can calculate a square root faster). I think that's bullshit, because LLMs just aren't capable of doing any of these things in a meaningful way.