Your brain works differently when you're using generative AI for a task than when you use your brain alone. Namely, you're less likely to remember what you did. That's the somewhat obvious-sounding conclusion of an MIT study that looked at how people think when they write an essay -- one of the earliest scientific studies of how using gen AI affects us.
The study, a preprint that has not yet been peer-reviewed, is pretty small (54 participants) and preliminary, but it points toward the need for more research into how using tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT is affecting how our brains function. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the research (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET's parent company, in April filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)
The findings show a significant difference in what happens in your brain and with your memory when you complete a task using an AI tool rather than when you do it with just your brain. But don't read too much into those differences -- this is just a glimpse at brain activity in the moment, not long-term evidence of changes in how your brain operates all the time, researchers said.
"We want to try to give some first steps in this direction and also encourage others to ask the question," Nataliya Kosmyna, a research scientist at MIT and the lead author of the study, told me.
The growth of AI tools like chatbots is quickly changing how we work, search for information and write. All of this has happened so fast that it's easy to forget that ChatGPT first emerged as a popular tool just a few years ago, at the end of 2022. That means we're just now beginning to see research on how AI use is affecting us.
Here's a look at what the MIT study found about what happened in the brains of ChatGPT users, and what future studies might tell us.
Watch this: Testing OpenAI's New ChatGPT Search Engine 06:01
This is your brain on ChatGPT
The MIT researchers split their 54 research participants into three groups and asked them to write essays during separate sessions over several weeks. One group was given access to ChatGPT, another was allowed to use a standard search engine (Google), and the third had none of those tools, just their own brains. The researchers analyzed the texts they produced, interviewed the subjects immediately after they wrote the essays, and recorded the participants' brain activity using electroencephalography, or EEG.
An analysis of the language used in the essays found that those in the "brain-only" group wrote in more distinct ways, while those who used large language models produced fairly similar essays. More interesting findings came from the interviews after the essays were written. Those who used their brains alone showed better recall and were better able to quote from their writing than those who used search engines or LLMs.
... continue reading