Brain Atrophy

A thinking mind, an eloquent tongue, and suave words are a lethal combination — or so I told myself for the entirety of my two-decade long career. Sprinkle a pleasing disposition and a well-groomed visage, and you are ready to take on the world with a winning personality. But today, that world is evolving and the rules of the game are constantly being altered. Nowadays, young working executives who can’t piece together a sentence verbally or in writing, submit fantastic pieces of well-articulated thought. You guessed it — ChatGPT to the rescue. As an entrepreneur and an active recruiter, I experience this a lot. Blame the high attrition rates and the whimsical Gen Z spirit but all of us seem to be constantly recruiting even as the paradoxical “no jobs” scenario plays out in the world. Resumes, emails, even WhatsApp texts have been cleverly crafted by using ChatGPT. But at the time of interviews, presentations, and meetings, here’s what happens — a deer in the headlights syndrome, a glazed expression, a stealthy look at the nearest tech device.

I have often balked at the reliance on AI within the younger generation. A recent survey by the Pew Research Centre stated that about 26 per cent of teen students were utilising the AI chatbot to write assignments last year compared to 13 per cent in 2023 — and these numbers are only growing. It’s so rampant that rarely can the younger generation function, ideate, or execute without its help. I’m often told “we use AI for ideas”; sure, do that but shouldn’t AI come to the rescue once you have flexed your god-given organ of the brain? We absolutely must use AI as an enabler; to do the grunt work that is not worth our time; to automate functions that build in greater efficiency and productivity. The end result should be of a superior quality that has been improved with AI’s aid — not sub-par work submitted because ChatGPT said so.

While we are training generative AI to become smarter, human beings are becoming dumber. Every time technology brings in ease, we lose a bit of ourselves. Food deliveries made us cook less, eat unhealthy outside food more, and introduced us to increased health issues. Conveniences such as quick commerce made us independent, saved our time, but also made us physically move less. We have ease at the cost of ill-health and obesity — we know this already.

As with all kinds of comforts, large language models (LLM) too have their ill effects. As per the recently published report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) titled, “Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task”, while the AI is getting quick-witted, the human brain is fast losing its powers of critical thinking. The brain scan, conducted on 54 subjects divided into three groups, found that while writing SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) essays, the ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioural levels”. The study also noted that ChatGPT users got lazier and used “copy-paste”. ChatGPT users showed a 47 per cent depletion in neural connectivity while 83.3 per cent couldn’t recall what they had just written. Two teachers who reviewed the essays found them to be “soulless”. By comparison, the brain-only users showcased highest neural connectivity, mnemonic ability, and ownership. The report’s primary concern, and reason behind releasing before peer review, was to red flag AI’s use in education even as Wharton released an OpenAI partnered report in November last year on ways to leverage ChatGPT for teaching. There could be succeeding generations that would not know how to learn or remember facts, dates, or any information. And that’s dangerous for the future of humankind.

While the cognitive cost of using AI could be high, the answer is not to banish it. In fact, not using AI now is virtually impossible. So how do we use AI without dependency and accumulating cognitive debt? Our goal should be to use it with caution — let your creative juices flow, allow your brain to think of concepts and ideas, and keep learning. Let AI only improve your work but not engineer your way of thinking. Remember, we are training AI and not the other way around. Here too, there is a tug of war of control and the need to achieve balance. The slothful individual will use AI to do all their work; the intelligent will take advantage of AI to sharpen their abilities. It’s also poignant for the younger generation to remember that only human creativity and ingenuity of ideas can save you from being replaced by AI. If AI can do it all, why will we need humans at all? Our human imperfections are our stock-in-trade; let’s not sell out so easily.

The writer is an author and media entrepreneur. Views expressed are personal