ChatGPT might be making you think less: MIT study raises ‘red flags' about AI dependency
ChatGPT might be making you think less: MIT study raises 'red flags' about AI dependency
As AI tools become part of our daily routines, a question is starting to bubble up: What happens when we rely on them too much? A new study from MIT's Media Lab takes a closer look at how tools like ChatGPT may be affecting our brains. And what the researchers found is worth paying attention to.
The study focused on how people engage mentally when completing tasks with and without AI. It turns out that while ChatGPT can make writing easier, it may also be reducing how much we think. According to the research team, participants who used ChatGPT showed noticeably lower brain activity than those who did the same task using Google or no tech at all. The findings suggest that depending on AI for tasks that require effort, like writing, decision-making, or creative thinking, could weaken the very mental muscles we're trying to sharpen.
ChatGPT users show lowest brain activity in MIT's groundbreaking study
The experiment involved 54 participants between the ages of 18 and 39. They were split into three groups and asked to write essays in response to prompts similar to those on standardised tests.
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Group 1 used ChatGPT to generate their answers
Group 2 relied on Google Search to find and compile information
Group 3 worked without any tools, using only their knowledge and reasoning
While they worked, each participant wore a headset that tracked electrical activity across 32 areas of the brain. The aim was to see how engaged their minds were during the process.
(The research was led by Dr. Nataliya Kosmyna along with a team that included Ashly Vivian Beresnitzky, Ye Tong Yuan, Jessica Situ, Eugene Hauptmann, Xian-Hao Liao, Iris Braunstein, and Pattie Maes.)
ChatGPT may be hurting your creativity, MIT researchers warn
The results were pretty clear: the group that used ChatGPT showed the lowest brain activity of all three groups. In particular, areas linked to memory, creativity, and concentration were significantly less active.
In contrast, those who wrote without help from AI showed the highest mental engagement. They had to organise their thoughts, build arguments, and recall information, all things that activated the brain more deeply. Even the group using Google Search showed more engagement than the AI group, possibly because the process of looking for and evaluating information keeps the brain involved.
There was another telling detail. Many in the ChatGPT group simply pasted the prompts into the tool and copied the output with little to no editing. Teachers who reviewed their essays said they felt impersonal, calling them
'soulless.'
Dr. Kosmyna put it bluntly:
'They weren't thinking. They were just typing.'
AI dependency
Short-term efficiency, long-term cost
Later in the study, researchers asked participants to rewrite one of their essays, this time without using any tools. The ChatGPT users struggled. Many couldn't remember their original arguments or structure. Since they hadn't processed the material deeply the first time, it hadn't stuck.
Kosmyna described this as a red flag: 'It was efficient. But nothing was integrated into their brains.'
That raises a broader concern: if AI is doing the heavy lifting, are we still learning? Or are we just moving text around while our cognitive skills fade in the background?
The growing concern among psychiatrists and educators
Dr. Zishan Khan, a psychiatrist who works with students, says he's already seeing signs of AI overuse in younger people. 'The neural pathways responsible for thinking, remembering, and adapting—they're weakening,' he explained. The fear is that early and frequent reliance on tools like ChatGPT might lead to long-term cognitive decline, especially in developing brains.
MIT's team is now expanding their research to see how AI affects people in other fields. They've already started looking at coders who use tools like GitHub Copilot. So far, Kosmyna says the early results there are 'even worse' in terms of mental engagement.
A word of warning for classrooms and beyond
Interestingly, the MIT researchers shared their findings before going through the full peer review process, something that's uncommon in academic research. But Kosmyna felt the potential impact was urgent enough to make an exception.
'I'm really concerned someone might say, 'Let's introduce ChatGPT into kindergarten classrooms,'' she said. 'That would be a terrible mistake. Young brains are especially vulnerable.'
To prove just how easy it is to lose the depth of complex research, the team did something clever: they planted subtle factual 'traps' in the study. When readers ran the paper through ChatGPT to summarise it, many versions came back with key errors, including details the researchers never even included.
What does this mean for the future of AI use
Not at all. The tool isn't the enemy. It can be incredibly helpful, especially when used wisely. But this study reminds us that how we use AI matters just as much as whether we use it.
Here are a few takeaways from the researchers:
Use AI as a partner, not a replacement. Let it offer ideas, but make sure you're still doing the core thinking.
Stay actively involved. Skipping the process of learning or writing just to get a result means you're not absorbing anything.
Be cautious in education. Children need to build foundational skills before leaning on technology.
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