🍰? Or 💀? Or 🤖?

 Isn’t the problem with old age and cognition that retired people, and just plain old people, lose cognitive ability from lack of use? I mean, the standard line is keeping your cognition sharp with “brain exercises, or something.

So is it a surprise that using ChatGPT makes you…stupid?

The tl:dr of the article is that numerous studies show an actual decline in cognitive function after using ChatGPT to write for them. Measurable, as in EEG measured:

The research team recruited 54 adults between the ages of 18 and 39 and divided them into three groups: one that used ChatGPT to help them write essays, one that used Google search as their main writing aid, and one that didn't use AI tech. The study took place over four months, with each group tasked with writing one essay per month for the first three, while a smaller subset of the cohort either switched from not using ChatGPT to using it — or vice versa — in the fourth month.

As they completed the essay tasks, the participants were hooked up to electroencephalogram (EEG) machines that recorded their brain activity. Here's where things get wild: the ChatGPT group not only "consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels," but also got lazier with each essay they wrote; the EEGs found "weaker neural connectivity and under-engagement of alpha and beta networks." The Google-assisted group, meanwhile, had "moderate" neural engagement, while the "brain-only" group exhibited the strongest cognitive metrics throughout.

The article cites several concurring studies, so while it’s not a medical journal article, it’s fairly well grounded. And the conclusion of these studies is in line with the common advice to the aging, like your humble host: that the brain is like a muscle; you have to exercise it to keep it healthy. Mens sano in corpore sano. The idea goes back to the Greeks, although the phrase is Latin. But the idea a healthy body produces a healthy mind (or at least supports it), is a venerated one. And clearly, as the body needs exercise, the mind does, too. Thinking of the brain as a muscle you want to keep fit, is really not a bad metaphor.

There’s a reason colleges require students to study composition, and it has to with learning to think. I used to adopt the phrase “think critically,” but I really don’t know any other kind worth doing. If you can write, put words on paper, learn to convey an idea, it means you can form an idea. French thought following Derrida (I don’t think he invented it, but he is now it’s avatar) critiques the supremacy of written over oral; and the British prize extemporaneous speech far more than Americans, and they’re much better at it. But the American model is to start with the written word; though I still think of “composition” as forming thought, not just writing. Still, the basic structure is words, sentences, paragraphs, so…

Most students resist, resent, or reject composition because it forces them to actually (or, if you prefer, “critically”) think. I actually had a student challenge me in class over why he had to take Freshman English. I honestly think he was better off with pure industrial school/trades education; but he’d been told “to get a GOOD job, get a good education.” And there he was. But the purpose of critical thinking is to prepare you to learn what a college has to teach; that what Elmo calls the “corpus of human knowledge” is vast, complex, challenging, and often contradictory (that Elmo never learned this is proved by his goal to reprogram Grok to “fix” human knowledge so that it agrees with Elmo. Maybe that’s the shiny bauble that’ll keep him out of trouble for awhile.).  You learn to cope with that, even navigate it, by learning to think yourself.  You learn to think yourself by learning to compose (on paper; or in your head) your ideas.

When I taught, AI was not a problem, but Google was. The lazier (and probably poorer) students would simply cut’n’paste free essays found through Google. Google, as you can imagine, made those easy to find. I always gave the paper a “Zero,” and threatened them with an “F” in the course if I caught them again. Occasionally I did. It was harder to find the purchased papers, but suspecting them was usually enough. It wasn’t that purchased papers were hard to identify; it was hard to prove my suspicions. I couldn’t give them the “death penalty” halfway through the semester; but I could grade based on my suspicions. It was usually Q

Thinking is hard; and the ones who didn’t want to do it, didn’t always learn their lesson.

Now, I started teaching 20 years after I got my Masters in English. It took me a while to recover my chops in formal composition so I could teach others. You want to really learn a subject? Teach it. It’s been several years since I stopped going to a classroom. I can tell the difference. It’s not irreversible; I’m not in mental decline. But if I don’t exercise that muscle, it will, in a sense, atrophy. I had foot surgery on Juneteenth last year. Nothing serious, just fixing a broken bone. But it’s taken me a year to restore the muscle tone I lost, all over, because I had to stay off that foot for five m. I couldn’t exercise, I couldn’t walk. It was an easy slide downhill, although it wasn’t a slide into complete loss of my muscles. Enough to make me realize how important basic movement and exercise are.

Anybody remember the “exercise machines” of the’50’s, mostly aimed at women, to lose weight by letting the machine do it for you? The exemplar was a machine with a belt. You stood in front of the motor, with this six inch wide belt around your stomach, and the machine vibrated the belt. Pounds melted off while you were shaken. At least that’s how it was sold. 

That’s what ChatGPT is: a machine that you think is aiding you, while you just stand there. Maybe eating another piece of cake.🍰 

That the scientific way, isn’t it?

AI may become an indispensable tool, like a hammer. When you need the hammer, nothing can replace it. But it doesn’t do the work for you; it lets you do the work. Consumer use of AI is murky, at the moment. My phone has “learned” to anticipate what word I’m working towards as I type, one finger and one letter at a time. It’s handy, but it can’t write for me; and I don’t want it to. People who do, are standing before the motor as the belt shakes away the pounds; wearing a heavy cotton sweatshirt and matching pants, because you can sweat the weight off, too. Even as you drink that milkshake.  At least that’s what they’re thinking now.

Imagine how odd that’s going to seem in 50 years. 🤔