this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
262 points (97.5% liked)

Technology

79136 readers
2608 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
L4s@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
262
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task – MIT Media Lab (www.media.mit.edu)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by da_peda@lemmings.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
31 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Edit: There's a blog post on the failings of the study and the communication around it: Clickbait Neuroscience: Lessons from “Your Brain on ChatGPT” – Mind Brain Education

EEG revealed significant differences in brain connectivity: Brain-only participants exhibited the strongest, most distributed networks; Search Engine users showed moderate engagement; and LLM users displayed the weakest connectivity. Cognitive activity scaled down in relation to external tool use.

Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 18107@aussie.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I recently used AI to make a plugin using a programming language I've never used before.

When working on similar projects in the past, I get to the end with a new understanding of the language and its capabilities.

This time, I think it took about 10% longer, was no easier overall (although each step seemed easier to start), and I feel like I still have basically no understanding of the language or its features.

If I were to start over, I'd still have to start learning from the beginning. AI has saved me no time at all, and the plugin still has plenty of subtle bugs I need to remove by hand.

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

I truly fear the technical debt we are accruing by AI, as experts die out, new ones will be less and less capable due to lack of experience, because AI might help you get the job done, but has no experience gained.