Note: this lemmy post was originally titled MIT Study Finds AI Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline and linked to this article, which I cross-posted from this post in [email protected].

Someone pointed out that the “Science, Public Health Policy and the Law” website which published this click-bait summary of the MIT study is not a reputable publication deserving of traffic, so, 16 hours after posting it I am editing this post (as well as the two other cross-posts I made of it) to link to MIT’s page about the study instead.

The actual paper is here and was previously posted on [email protected] and other lemmy communities here.

Note that the study with its original title got far less upvotes than the click-bait summary did 🤡

    • frongt@lemmy.zip
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      2 days ago

      This isn’t just being said, it’s being shown with data.

      • sidelove@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Not only that but *broad gestures at society and the state of the world post-Internet*

        • sqgl@sh.itjust.works
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          All of us Geeks were evangelical about the Internet in the 90’s. It is very humbling.

    • QuadDamage@kbin.earth
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      The people the paper talks about are the masses who think LLMs are “intelligent”, then outsource their frontal lobe to Silicon Valley datacenters because it’s seemingly easier. People who see LLMs as tools are much less (if at all) affected by this, if anything it’s a trap for people who already have lower critical thinking skills in the first place and want GPUs to think for them.

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      That’s the thing about cognitive decline…

      The people experiencing it only realize it’s happening during brief reprieves from the symptoms

      So if someone is experiencing cognitive decline, they’re literally incapable of recognizing it. They all think they completely fine…

      • meco03211@lemmy.world
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        A constant refrain I’ve found myself using with a Facebook “friend” is “you lack the ability to even understand why you are wrong”. Like I’m convinced he actually thinks anecdotal stories carry as much weight as troves of data proving him wrong.

    • the_q@lemmy.zip
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      You don’t think it’s odd that you use AI and here you are defending it?

      • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        Realistically speaking, why would anyone think it’s odd to defend something they use and/or enjoy? That doesn’t really point to anything abnormal.

          • Artisian@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            I wouldn’t want to apply that to my favorite policy interventions.

            You’re probably right that ranked choice voting won’t unlock utopia, and your favorite flavor of communism probably leads to the worst endless meeting. But we don’t have to like it.

      • QuadDamage@kbin.earth
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        …you are in a technology community? They’re barely defending anything either, just a reasonable take about people saying the same thing about earlier technologies.

      • Angelusz@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        It is not. As with all things, LLMs have their use. Unfortunately, they are slightly overhyped and the tech is very resource hungry, contributing to environmental and societal problems in at least the USA, probably everywhere to at least some extent.

        The hope is, ofcourse, that the same tech will help alleviate those problems in turn. Time will tell who’s right.

        • Korkki@lemmy.ml
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          Haven’t you heard wallstreet needs AI to be “good” or 75% of the tech companies + Nvidia take a nosedive we’ll get a another -08 recession,