Is AI Making You Forgetful?
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A Hidden Cost: It’s 2025, and none of us can escape AI. It’s everywhere, and that means most of us are using it — even if we don’t know we are. AI is a tool that has its place, but eyebrow-raising new research suggests it may be making us more forgetful and less creative.
The Study: A study out of MIT says that using ChatGPT to write essays leads to low brain engagement. Compared to participants who wrote essays using only Google (with AI functions removed) or no online tools at all (“brain-only”), the ChatGPT group “consistently underperformed” at academic skills like critical thinking and memory recall.
The Takeaway: There’s a reason that using an AI tool like ChatGPT makes tasks feel easier: It quite literally reduces the amount of work your brain does. Using these tools might make you more productive, but it won’t necessarily make your work any better.
Keep In Mind: Humans have always found ways to cognitively offload; the concept dates back to cave paintings. What we’re doing with AI is nothing new in practice, but the volume at which we allow AI to think for us — instead of doing it ourselves — may have long-lasting detrimental effects on our cognitive abilities.
