Irish Examiner view: In the era of AI, education is at a premium
Researchers at MIT, with an admittedly very small sample size, suggest that the use of ChatGPT and similar AI tools results in reduced cognition. Stock picture
While the rush by companies to crowbar artificial intelligence into every product imaginable continues — even if it’s not actually artificial intelligence and just tools that are good at predicting the answer you’re looking for — the technology is already showing detrimental effects on the human mind.
A study published this month by researchers at MIT, with an admittedly very small sample size, suggests that the use of ChatGPT and similar tools results in reduced cognition, which is essential for independent critical thinking: “Over four months, LLM [large language model] users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels.
