There was a time when almost everyone stored several phone numbers deep inside. Pick up an old Nokia, or cordless, and dial the number. These days, most people remember only one phone number. It's my phone number. And in some cases, it's not. That's the same with the date of birth, trivia like who the Finnish Prime Minister is, or the exact route to this famous bakery in the corner of the city.
Humans are no longer memory machines, often leading to hilarious videos on social media. The young student is asked to name India's first prime minister on camera, and they all seem confused. Maybe Gandhi, some of them say it badly. We all laugh at their sacrifices.
But that's not the children's fault. It's a different world. The idea of memorizing things is a 20th century concept. Memory lost its value. This is because with the help of Google, you can remember everything. You can store information outside your brain or on the phone and access it at any time. Memory lost its value and he also lost the ability to memorize things. May I? Is it bad? That's not the purpose of this work. Instead, it's about what we lose next.
Then, for example, in 10-15 years, we lose our ability to think and analyze only in ways that we have lost our ability to memorize. And that's because of chatgpt and its ilks.
So far, we have doubted something like this. Now, research is beginning to track it with graphs and charts. About a week ago, researchers at MIT Media Lab performed several experiments on what happens in people's brains when using CHATGPT. As part of the experiment, the researchers divided 54 people into three groups. People who work only with the brain, people who use brain search, people who use brain and chatGpt. The work was writing essays and their brains were scanned using EEG as participants in the study tried to do it.
The findings were clear. “EEG revealed a huge difference in brain connection,” wrote researchers at MIT Lab. “Brain-only participants showed the strongest and most distributed networks. Search engine users showed moderate engagement. LLM users showed the weakest connectivity.”
This study was conducted over four months, and in the final stage, participants who were part of the brain-only group were asked to also use ChatGPT, but were told not to use the ChatGPT group at all. “For four months, LLM (CHATGPT) users consistently reduced performance at neural, language, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational impact of LLM reliance and highlight the need for deeper investigation in AI learning,” wrote researchers at MIT Labs.
What is the big takeaway? It's very easy. It is established that reading, for example, changes and rewiring the brain – the use of things like chatgpt affects the brain in several basic ways. The brain, like muscles, can atrophy if not used. And then, in the lab, we began to see signs that people rely too much on AI tools like ChatGpt and that their brains could lose some of this function in order to think, write and analyze.
Of course, there may be the other side of the story. In some areas, if the mind is getting a rest, in others, neurons may shine more frequently. If you lose the ability to analyze Excel sheets at a glance, after seeing ChatGPT analysis of 10 financial statements, you will gain the ability to find bigger ideas faster.
But I'm not sure. Overall, and if we include everyone, the impact of the information abundance that tools like Google and Wikipedia brought about didn't bring in smarter people or people like Savant. There are often crude jokes on the internet. We previously believed people were stupid because we had no access to information. Ah, we were just naive.
The impact of tools like ChatGpt may not be purely positive, at least in the human mind. And it brings me to my next question. So who should use chatgpt, who should, who should, who should, who should, who should, current AI tools are definitely powerful. They can crash through all the gatekeeping that happens in the world. They can make everyone feel superhuman.
If this much of this power is available, not using it is a waste. Therefore, everyone should use AI tools like ChatGPT. But I feel there needs to be a way to go about it. If you don't want to destroy your mind by AI, you must be wise about how to use it. It is unwise to use ChatGpt or similar tools during formative years at school, university or at work where you are studying the ropes of trade. The idea is that you need to use ChatGpt like a bike. This makes it more efficient and faster than crutches. The idea is that before you can use ChatGpt, you need to already have a brain that has found a way to learn and connect dots.
This is probably why, again and again in the last few months, the need for top AI experts to emphasize the need to focus on learning the basics of using AI tools. Deepmind CEO Demis Hassabis was the best he could have done while speaking at Cambridge last month. When answering questions about how students should deal with AI, he said, “It's important that you use the time you have as a faculty to learn how to understand yourself better and learn.”
In other words, Hassavis believes that before jumping to ChatGPT or other AI tools, you need to have the basic ability to quickly analyze, adapt and learn without them first. I think this will be key to better use of AI tools in the future. Otherwise, overloading Instagram, Google and all information will corrupt our brains, just like we've done in our memory and attention.
(Javed Anwer is the technology editor India Today Group Digital. Latent Space is a weekly column of technology, the world, and everything in between. The name comes from the science of AI, and the same potential space works to reflect that. By simplifying the world of technology and giving context)
(The views expressed in this opinion are those of the author)
