Are We Willingly Turning Dumber?
The Hidden Cost of AI: Creativity and Reasoning
This post is part of Nothing in Particular, a quiet section of Breadcrumbs & Backstories. It’s like my tiny space to rant about passing thoughts and questions.
I’m sure, by now every one of you must’ve read the news on how brain rot isn’t just a popular GenZ term. Using ChatGPT and other AIs for mundane tasks is actually eating away on our ability to think and reason.
Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.
Well, surprise, surprise.
But to be honest, even without the studies on our cognitive impacts- aren’t the results already very palpable? We as human beings, in the name of productivity, have anyway always tossed away things that made us creative. Tools for automated machines, pens for keyboards- you get the idea.
Although the toll taken by these automations might not be that heavy- as there’s still some level of thinking involved, AI is a completely different beast- which, if untamed- can become a worse master than fire.
Brains, in living organisms, have evolved primarily for the purpose of locomotion. Look at the tiny sea squirt- a wee little creature that begins its life as a larva with a tiny brain and nervous system. It has one objective: to find a suitable place to settle. Once that’s done, it attaches itself to that new home, and starts consuming its own brain for nutrition. So basically, without movement, your brain is as good as a midnight snack.
Thinking is an extension of the same mechanisms that govern movements. You’re just moving thoughts and concepts- instead of your limbs. And that’s why we avoid thinking whenever given a choice- in fact our systems more or less run on autopilot, till we are posed with questions or situations that our brains can't solve without some more heavy lifting. That’s why thinking is so taxing, and why it burns so many calories as well (ask any chess player).
The crux being, for an organism like us that anyway doesn’t like to think, a tool like AI that takes away the need to think even in challenging situations isn’t exactly a boon- like it is being sold, but a big bane. Obviously, that depends on how it is being used, but for the majority, you know how it always goes.
Why do we suck at math? Because we don’t practice regularly. Now imagine if that starts happening to each and every cognitive skill you have- starting from drafting emails (which I personally have already started having trouble with) to having conversations. And yes, yes, I know this might come off as a very pessimistic take on AI and humans in general, but this stems from my own struggles with thinking- be it writing or debugging code, or coming up with better words than “struggles” to explain the problem that I am facing.
Maybe all is not doomed and I’m just panicking, but in retrospect, and also aided by the fact that I’m much of a traditionalist at heart, I’d much rather live in a world without AI than in one with it. Bring back the days when we used to write letters and actually put in effort into conveying things- not just because it held much more value than anything we can ask AI to come up with, but also because it made us think!
We might not be far from a time when the “A” in AI stops meaning artificial and starts meaning atrophied. Because artificial will be the only intelligence we’ll be left with. And, who knows, this might happen in the next 200-500 years, but in the span of human history, that’s nothing but the blink of an eye.
Nothing in Particular is a small, reflective detour from the main blog, Breadcrumbs & Backstories- your place for quirky stories, reflections, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
Great post and I was also disturbed by the study.
I’m curious, do you think there’s an efficiency argument to be made, that once the brain knows there’s a faster way to accomplish something, it won’t expend resources doing it “the hard way”? From that standpoint, using AI seems highly rational.
I also feel like we don’t have programming that challenges us. Most shows are about singing, cooking, remedial quiz games, shows about cops, fire houses, doctors, and lawyers. And let’s not forget reality TV. And most words are now abbreviated or autocorrected. It’s a shame.