Using AI chatbots for even just for 10 minutes may have a shockingly negative impact on people’s ability to think and problem-solve, according to a new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Oxford, and UCLA.

[dougbarry@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog cc @davidgerard

[darby3@zirk.us]

@GossiTheDog I don’t need no chortbort to make myself dumber, that’s what me jug o’ booze is for

[muhammadfreesoftware@fosstodon.org]

@GossiTheDog I sometimes use AI chatbots it when searching for emojis. I send prompts like "print the whale emoji" and it's much faster than searching on an app. I believe this doesn't hurt my ability to think

[usbtypesteve@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog I think it has a multiplied effect on the elderly as well...I caught a few conversations where an elderly woman was trying to figure out some mystery with someone else, and rather than think, her first ambition was to "ask AI" which disappointed me to hear.

[nest@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog

if you learn to walk with crunches, you fall when they are removed.

[kpwn@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog What really hurts about this is that the AI-assisted group performs better than the control group.

This means its tempting to use AI to increase performance. Especially in a competitive setting (like everywhere in capitalism) you'll "win" with AI assistance.

And in the end, we are left with a group of winners who have less persistence and reduced independent performance. And there's no way out.

[litchipi@fosstodon.org]

@MuhammadFreeSoftware @GossiTheDog hurts the planet tho
(not meant aggressively)

[odr_k4tana@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog not gonna lie: this work is kinda problematic, especially when I see how they frame their results.
The first study simply represents a modular change problem. If you had help you will always struggle initially if that help is cut off suddenly, and the ability only slowly recovers.
The second, "better" version (acc to authors) is also funny. Once you read "Participants who used AI for hints showed no significant impairments relative to control", it's easy to guess what happened. Lazy people did not take the task seriously and used AI for answers. Of course they'll crash.
This rather confirms my personal notion that AI is mostly enabling laziness rather than killing thinking ability (as I stated here some time ago: https://k4tana.github.io/blog/2025/06/04/AI-Nuanced-Take.html).

Edit: Additionally those effect sizes are not really much to write home about, especially in the second experiment. Statistical significance alone does not mean practical relevance.

[linguistgoneforeign@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog

Thanks for sharing!

[walruths@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog
A chatbot is the reason I installed prosody 4 times before succeeding, granted, it's also why I know why it didn't work, lmao, but imagine the time savings in retrospect.

[bontchev@infosec.exchange]

@GossiTheDog In other news, using a calculator impairs your ability to compute in your head. Also, my constant use of keyboard has impacted negatively the legibility of my handwriting.

[masyukun@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog This doesn't pass the smell test. Compare with if you had a 10 minute conversation with the smartest person you know. Or the dumbest. Shouldn't there be more general results that indicate conversations IN GENERAL make you smarter or dumber depending on who you are speaking to?

[vonkordke@mastodon.com.pl]

@GossiTheDog what about talking with other people? Don't ask anybody about anything and do everything by yourself?

[linuro@soc.zom.bi]

@GossiTheDog @leyrer What a gravely wrong summary of that study.
Quote: "Participants who used AI for hints showed no significant impairments relative to control."
It's a tool. If you use a calculator instead of doing mental arithmetic, your calculating abilities decline.

[jackemled@furry.engineer]

@MuhammadFreeSoftware @GossiTheDog Why not just use the built in emote search available on literally every operating system? It's even faster & it costs much less.

[just_a_rock@wetdry.world]

@bontchev @GossiTheDog Using a calculator does not harm your mathematical reasoning or your accuracy with doing the math in your head. It just leaves you out of practice so you take longer. That is practice, which is not the same type of learning as reasoning & thinking. Here they show the harm AI causes to reasoning & thinking ability & motivation. Real time taken to answer a math problem was not measured as part of the study. See the experiment methods & both the control & variable conditions.

[tarix29@tech.lgbt]

@odr_k4tana @GossiTheDog I really would have liked to see another group who was only given the test questions without the prior "practice" questions. That could have shown whether AI use directly decreased performance or if it merely made the practice less effective

[spinni81@mastodon.social]

@GossiTheDog
"In the AI condition, participants solved 12 fraction problems with an AI assistant (GPT-5) available in a sidebar. The AI was then removed without warning, and all participants solved 3 additional test problems independently. Participants in the AI condition had a significantly lower solve rate"

I'm quite sure the same would happen with a calculator instead of an AI chatbot. Interesting study but with this methodology I'd take it with a grain of salt.