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cognitive debt

2025-06-16 04:13:43.942139+02 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

LLM users also struggled to accurately quote their own work. While LLMs offer immediate convenience, our findings highlight potential cognitive costs. Over four months, LLM users consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels. These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning.

Via Gernot Wagner @gwagner@fediscience.org:

To write is to think. Using ChatGPT to write leads to..."cognitive debt", which might be one of the better euphemism for somewhat less polite words.

Small n, not yet peer-reviewed, etc https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872

Also referenced by Elf Sternberg

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: cognitive debt made: 2025-06-18 06:27:52.515812+02 by: Dan Lyke

https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/

#Comment Re: cognitive debt made: 2025-06-30 18:29:57.814725+02 by: Dan Lyke

Just collecting this, it's registration to read the whole thing and I didn't bother to 'cause it seemed like a recap of stuff I've read elsewhere: Nature: Does using ChatGPT change your brain activity? Study sparks debate

Scientists warn against reading too much into a small experiment generating a lot of buzz.

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