LLMs make it easier to write code, but understanding, reviewing, and maintaining it still takes time, trust, and good judgment.

I think, therefore it’s not eXtreme Go Horse.

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 hooked them to an EEG to see which parts of their brains were active or not. [_arXiv_ _, PDF_] The ChatGPT group had less interconnected brain activity. Specifically, they didn’t use the parts of their brains that normally engage in language processing, working memory, or creative writing as much as the other groups. ChatGPT users “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” ChatGPT makes you stupid. Only 20% of the chatbot group could remember a quote from their own essay. Shown their own essay afterwards, 16% of the chatbot group denied it was theirs. That shouldn’t be surprising — if you’re not doing the work, you won’t remember the work. But then the researchers switched the groups up. The search-engine and just-their-brain groups did just as well when they switched to using the chatbot. But the chatbot group didn’t get any better when they switched to search-engine or just their brains. They were still stuck thinking as badly as they did when they were trying to write with the chatbot. This strongly suggests it’s imperative to keep students away from chatbots in the classroom — so they’ll actually learn. This also explains people who _insist_ you use the chatbot instead of thinking and will not shut up about it. They tried thinking once and they didn’t like it. * _Video version_ ### Share this post: * Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook * Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn * Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit * Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X * Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon * Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky * Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email * ### Like this: Like Loading... ### _Related_