It’s not you, Generative AI is making you dumber….. ok not for some of you who use your favourite LLM to engage and to reason with, going into deep research mode, taking notes and using the outputs to further your own learning – for you, Gen AI is aiding and assisting your brains neuron’s to make connections and become smarter – congratulations!
For those of you who use Gen AI to do your work for you, answer emails, complete RFPs, or make answers easier, its worth stopping and thinking, because before the advent of the GPS you knew how to get many places easily, before Mobile phones you remembered the phone numbers of everyone who was important to you, before the advent of Tick Tock you could watch a video longer than 60 seconds and before Teams and email you were productive! (Ok I made this one up!).
WTH happened to us, well, as with the thing my parents used to tell me, “if you don’t use your brain you will lose it” (always because I’d done something stupid!) this statement was also the reality.
I can not deny that reading has become harder, navigating is easier using a device and my attention span is fried.
I’m no psychologist but I know when I don’t have to write something or study it, I don’t learn from it very quickly either. There are now several studies that are showing that cognitive decline happens when not using your brain to achieve outcomes, relying on a Large Language Model instead to do your answering for you.
My real concern is our children not able to learn topics deeply anymore, because the answer can be (often incorrectly) gleaned from an LLM instead of taking the time to understand the topic and have those neurons in your brain working making long term connections, consider how to use the platforms to help you think and learn, and I don’t mean because you need to go through and fix all the mistakes (because you will have to if you know anything about your subject).
My final thought
My final thought, is that we as humans in our 70s and beyond suffer from cognitive decline and die earlier when our brains are not working to their capacity. Tools are great, convenience is awesome, but each step we take is a step further away from being fully self able.
There is some research about this very topic here.
Please reach out to me if I can assist you in any way here.
