> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
Sure, but “computer does all of the logical inference by hand and it turns out your brain isn’t needed” is awfully a big confirmation bias in favor of people who have left LLMs work in their favor.
> Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
Muggings and kidnappings, as bad as they are, can't really be done at scale.
That device a) has some kind of secure enclave, hopefully, and more importantly b) restricts your ability to run arbitrary code off the internet to the point that everyday users probably can't do it. I don't like it, but they do it because it's effective.
> I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer [...]
Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.
I have always assumed that this was done to drive app usage. Companies hope that if you use an app regularly you'll keep it on the home screen of your phone, and it becomes a foothold into your most intimate device.
Bitwarden has desktop apps.
And Vaultwarden hosts your own instance.
Also, Bitwarden has MFA.
But yes I agree, some have a specific kind of MFA, like Google. I hate Google's MFA. You have to get up and get your phone to press something.
I hate being forced to use the phone.
Funny how apple purposely breaks this for convenience. Some merchant or bank will try and implement 2 factor from a code they text you. Apple scans your messages in the background and prompts you to fill the code from one click all from this one “factor” thanks to the imessage/sms integration.
My wife and I have been talking about noticing the general cognitive decline in people we interact with. We both started to notice that people have been getting a little bit...goofy (spacing out, not really reciprocating communication, hyper-limited attention spans, etc).
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
I am a party magician in my spare time -- I walk around parties and show short bits of eye-catching magic to guests.
I have noticed that some young people (~18-30 yo) lose attention within as little as 5 seconds. I could have someone choose a card and in that amount of time, they have spaced out -- no phone, just staring blankly. I have two rubber bands examined and by the time they are handed back, someone is on their phone.
The most annoying part is that -- because I construct my routines for minimal attention spans -- within 2 more seconds, something magic happens and everyone who's paying attention reacts. And the 1-2 young people who zoned out start panicking about the FOMO, "what happened?" "do it again!" Sorry folks!
I invested in META stock because I have an addiction to instagram and the tracking is so good that the ads are actually tailored to me and my desires so my CTR is i think 7% on average. contrast with YouTube and Google and Twitter where I block all the ads because the CTR is 0.00% because they are all garbage. Instagram keeps showing me ads for expensive stuff I don't need but I do want, like meal kits and fancy clothes
When Facebook first came out, you could run an ad for $5 and the ads are often things I happily clicked on.
Granted, it was by and for college students, so there was an inherent selection bias. Still, Zuckerberg built his whole empire on getting enough data about people to show ads that are so targeted they feel relevant.
The idea of app timers seems like exactly the weird self-negotiation alcoholics do around booze where they think mimicking the habits of casual drinkers (on what is, to the casual, a bender) will make them not an alcoholic anymore.
Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
I get what you are saying but it’s 2025 and a mobile device is basically required to operate in society today. Especially if you want an active social life or to excel at work.
Nobody needs a margarita or any other addictive substance to function in society (barring actual substances issues). So it’s a false equivalence to compare apps like this.
An example in my middle aged life is that my kids extra-curriculars are all organized on WhatsApp. If I choose not to have a Meta account then my kids suffer when I am out of the loop on their events. Then of course all of the invites and venues are on Facebook. And all the parents post their pics to IG.
Because these apps are purposely designed to addict you, it is a real sticky thing to have to dip your toes in without getting sucked into a scrolling nightmare.
I find them really useful, I find youtube to be a good thing in moderation. But its very helpful to have a timer forcing me to thoughtfully use the time I've allocated.
Articles like this always start with such radical criticism, and end with such dismally modest proposals: "try not to look at your phone for 1 hour after you wake up", "before you pick up your phone, try counting to 100 first", "move 'instagram' away from your homescreen", etc. What about just getting rid of your smartphone? Who really needs anything beyond calls and text messages...? You can get a GPS map, and a camera. Complete freedom is right there for the taking.
Tik Tok is obvious brain rot, but what if one's time at the dopamine carnival is spent consuming "brain-growth" content? Phones essentially put all human knowledge at our fingertips, where is the line of diminishing or negative returns when trying to consume it?
Popular science videos is still filler; I'd be inclined agree if you were scrolling MIT lectures (and watching them in their entirety), but how much of actual knowledge (and not random tidbits) do you retain from short form videos?
99% of the time it is consumption without ever utilizing the knowledge for any creative endeavor . And without application the knowledge will quickly fade and you’ll find yourself watching the same 10min video on statistics 101 for the 3rd time, because you keep forgetting.
It’s still mindless consumption if you don’t interact with the material in any meaningful way (follow up questions, application, try to refute it, evaluate a hypothesis you had before watching it, …)
Truthfully most online "content" is not growing your brain. It's not the right format for proper learning and retention. Most people using the internet aren't tapping the fountain of human knowledge, and even most of those that think they are, are not.
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
> I don’t rely on “willpower” or “discipline” - I try to design each day with intention
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
Is this an ADHD coping strategy? I’m not trying to second guess, I’m actually very intrigued because the way you described your thought process is very similar to mine, but I’ve never been tested or diagnosed.
In any case thanks, this will help me in the future I think.
> I stumbled on this elegant [lockable] box you put phones into and it blocks all radio communications.
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
I think I can obtain a triple benefit by using Cursor "ask" mode instead of "agent" mode.
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
> for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
Seems like this is the inherent difficulty in being a skillful developer. Atleast in the context of non-trivial collaborative projects, big edits that the person commiting doesn't understand might as well be a diceroll, and imo those big edits should really only be applied if the intent was to save the time in writing it.
The biggest benefit to me (using Copilot instead of Cursor) is that you can make sure that it understands the problem and the solution is what you expected. If I want to see if it can make a big change, I usually flow through "I need X, what are our options" -> "Discuss option N more" -> "Ok, now you can do it".
Man, instead of going to some discord channel, asking waiting for some human to respond, if they do, then potentially misunderstand the question, maybe even cause drama, or using a search engine to crawl, tediously through SO and Reddit posts, because Google favors those 2, or wading through pages of potentially badly written documentation,
I just turn on github and ask copilot.
And it responds in most cases, and I can even chat with it ask for alternatives or better approaches to my problems.
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building.
Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image.
Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it.
However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
Used to be if you needed a logo you wrote it on a napkin. Just quick simple creativity. I imagine limiting opportunities to engage in that lead to future opportunities to engage in that feeling like too high a friction cost. Like falling out of the habit of working out.
I can’t abide by that last claim. AI has been able to fetch some dead Microsoft documentation for me that I was not able to otherwise find through the regular channels. The code would have had to have looked very differently if not for AI.
Mixed bag for me. I spent a day running in circles working on a github action based on lots of very bad info from chatGPT. I also just reviewed a PR that allowed for remote function execution. The dev that wrote the code has been very open about their use of AI. He thought it was good because he wasnt thinking.
Internet archive is pretty good for old documentation. It's very interesting what API features that are removed from new versions and all documentation scrubbed but actually still work.
The exact mechanisms will be individual to the person.
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
> Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
> Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
>Having your phone in the same room while doing cognitive work reliably drops your memory, attention, and overall cognitive performance.
>People are forgetting their intentions when scrolling, with TikTok being the most effective at doing this. It takes 25 minutes to get back to focusing on a task, but only a few seconds to lose that focus.
>You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.
>Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
>Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
All of these are obviously not true. At best some are very strained interpretations of the papers at worst they are very clearly false.
If you believe that "Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x." or "You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.", then I have a bridge to sell you. These are so laughably false that it makes the entire sentiment look ridiculous.
People need to be honest about the problems that exist and actually engage with the psychology which drives negative behavior. But to do that the starting point needs to be a clear understanding of what the intentions are. Is TikTok bad, because using it makes you loose focus on other tasks or because you are forgetting your intentions? Certainly a great book does the same exact thing, yet somehow I never see book reading in these articles. So why is one significantly worse than the other? This is obviously a question about values. And unless society can clearly articulate why spending time on reading books is more valuable than spending time scrolling TikTok no change is possible.
The "surprising results" are a bit factoid-ey and if taken at face value are far more shocking than they turned out to be (I very much appreciate the references so I could check this):
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
It's really hard to take any of his claims seriously when the article title itself is leading with 1960s old wives tales about dopamine neurochemistry.
I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.
The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.
padolsey|7 months ago
Argh people keep referencing this study as Gospel. It has not been peer-reviewed. Its methodology has a number of concerning confounders. It's a tiny sample with a narrow contrived task domain. And the very premise of the study is misframed. The implication that 'brain activity' is a positive outcome does not follow. Brain connectivity might be analagous to inefficiency as opposed to the reported 'engagement' or 'cognitive debt'.
llmthrow103|7 months ago
thrawa8387336|7 months ago
kortilla|7 months ago
jredwards|7 months ago
ch4s3|7 months ago
satyrun|7 months ago
The problem is if you are driving a car to go the same speed and distance as walking then it is missing the point.
nudgeOrnurture|7 months ago
[deleted]
viccis|7 months ago
jampa|7 months ago
That is my biggest problem with most Multifactor authentication. I try to leave my phone in another room to focus, but needing the phone authenticator for something always happens within two hours.
I still don't know why apps think a device I carry in the streets is safer than one I leave at home to do important transactions like moving money, for example. Where I live, there are a lot of cases of people being kidnapped and coerced to make payments (which are instant), yet no Banking app allows you to do anything without a phone.
lmm|7 months ago
Muggings and kidnappings, as bad as they are, can't really be done at scale.
That device a) has some kind of secure enclave, hopefully, and more importantly b) restricts your ability to run arbitrary code off the internet to the point that everyday users probably can't do it. I don't like it, but they do it because it's effective.
Dr_Birdbrain|7 months ago
My current employer has a little nub on my laptop that I touch, but my previous employer was big on making me check my smartphone.
joules77|7 months ago
It's quite possible to live with websites.
o11c|7 months ago
Because MFA requirements have never been about security, only security theater. It's the modern version of the "you must change your password every 30 days" rule.
AndrewSwift|7 months ago
satvikpendem|7 months ago
darqis|7 months ago
candiddevmike|7 months ago
kjkjadksj|7 months ago
tonyedgecombe|7 months ago
deepsun|7 months ago
michael1999|7 months ago
That turns the laptop + fingerprint into your extra factors.
rglover|7 months ago
We both land on a combination of social media and economic effects (people stressed to make ends meet leading to an anxious mind). AI is on the lower-end of our concerns.
lesinski|7 months ago
I have noticed that some young people (~18-30 yo) lose attention within as little as 5 seconds. I could have someone choose a card and in that amount of time, they have spaced out -- no phone, just staring blankly. I have two rubber bands examined and by the time they are handed back, someone is on their phone.
The most annoying part is that -- because I construct my routines for minimal attention spans -- within 2 more seconds, something magic happens and everyone who's paying attention reacts. And the 1-2 young people who zoned out start panicking about the FOMO, "what happened?" "do it again!" Sorry folks!
QuantumGood|7 months ago
androng|7 months ago
bsimpson|7 months ago
Granted, it was by and for college students, so there was an inherent selection bias. Still, Zuckerberg built his whole empire on getting enough data about people to show ads that are so targeted they feel relevant.
unknown|7 months ago
[deleted]
milofeynman|7 months ago
bcoates|7 months ago
Yes, normies might have three margaritas on a Tuesday. Like, once a quarter. Not every single day, and also not followed by a whole lot more once you’re loosened up.
Likewise, the reaction of a mentally stable person to TikTok is like the reaction of a normal person to a casino full of slot machines--discomfort and more than a little disgust. If you start wagging your tail to that shit, there is no safe level and you need to delete it all yesterday, app timers and clever little boxes are making you worse.
mingus88|7 months ago
Nobody needs a margarita or any other addictive substance to function in society (barring actual substances issues). So it’s a false equivalence to compare apps like this.
An example in my middle aged life is that my kids extra-curriculars are all organized on WhatsApp. If I choose not to have a Meta account then my kids suffer when I am out of the loop on their events. Then of course all of the invites and venues are on Facebook. And all the parents post their pics to IG.
Because these apps are purposely designed to addict you, it is a real sticky thing to have to dip your toes in without getting sucked into a scrolling nightmare.
pipsterwo|7 months ago
candiddevmike|7 months ago
squigz|7 months ago
unknown|7 months ago
[deleted]
_rpxpx|7 months ago
mortsnort|7 months ago
spaqin|7 months ago
YuukiRey|7 months ago
It’s still mindless consumption if you don’t interact with the material in any meaningful way (follow up questions, application, try to refute it, evaluate a hypothesis you had before watching it, …)
sjw987|7 months ago
Quick fun facts on TikTok and Reddit, as well as quick searching and skimming of Google/ChatGPT/Wikipedia are only conducive to superficial learning, unless you are doing something more to wrap that knowledge around your brain (i.e. using it in work/a project, expanding the context in your mind by writing an essay, reading more of it).
This is very much the by-product of the times we live in. Less people are truly learning things, and instead we are learning how to find the information we need. We have things like the internet sitting there, so we take the path of least resistance and use them as and when we need them. It works fine until you don't have an internet connection.
devmor|7 months ago
This point is the most important callout to me. This is a macrocosm of how I focus on tasks as a person with already disastrous dopamine interactions (severe ADHD).
I was actually thinking about this last night, when I noticed that I approached the self-checkout at the grocery store with more items than the two people who'd been there before me, and left before either of them had finished checking out despite not being in any particular rush.
When I'm going about my day, I am thinking about the actions I'm going to take, deliberating on them and deciding my intent prior to when I will need to execute it. Not to a significant degree, but to go back to my grocery store anecdote: when I was waiting in line I was preparing myself to execute these tasks:
1. Set my re-usable bags in the bagging area.
2. Respond to the prompt asking me if I have placed bags there.
3. Enter my loyalty code.
4. Scan the rigid and heavier items first, placing them in the bottom of the bags.
5. Scan the lighter, crushable items last.
6. Select my payment method.
7. Tap my payment card, and respond to the PIN prompts.
8. Retrieve my bags and receipt.
This sounds like a lot, looking at it. Maybe it was early on, but now this is such a natural part of my cognitive load that I didn't even specifically notice that I do it until I wondered about the speed difference I observed.
To further reinforce the hypothesis, I thought about the most recent times that I did something completely unstructured with no idea what I would have to do (or at least no solid plan due to the event being controlled by other people) and concluded that I was generally slower to act and felt less able to respond to stimuli appropriately.
This is all to say, given these observations and the initial recognition of what I use as an ADHD-coping strategy, I wonder if the overuse of social media and similar stimuli effectively reproduces the negative aspects of ADHD on otherwise "normal"-brained individuals.
pirates|7 months ago
In any case thanks, this will help me in the future I think.
layer8|7 months ago
If you truly want to block yourself from using your phone (or similar) for some amount of time, the Kitchen Safe time-lock boxes are great. They don’t look particularly elegant, nor do they block radio communication, but their unique feature is that you’d have to irreversibly physically break them to access whatever you locked inside before the timer has elapsed. There are many similar products, which however usually have an “emergency” mechanism to preempt the timer, which defeats the purpose.
androng|7 months ago
1) I don't over-rely on the AI so I don't accidentally commit bugs
2) I can just put in a OpenAI API key pay-as-you-go instead of subscribing to Cursor Pro monthly and getting screwed by SaaS fee I don't use
3) I actually learn what the AI says and add it to my long-term memory instead of just having it write code for me in Agent mode
admittedly this only works for small tasks, for bigger edits I think trying to learn everything the AI says is not really scalable or at least it takes me much longer.
brailsafe|7 months ago
Seems like this is the inherent difficulty in being a skillful developer. Atleast in the context of non-trivial collaborative projects, big edits that the person commiting doesn't understand might as well be a diceroll, and imo those big edits should really only be applied if the intent was to save the time in writing it.
gs17|7 months ago
darqis|7 months ago
And then I needed a logo for my new service I'm building. Search for AI image generator, input the prompt and a few seconds later I have my really cool image. Time saved -> infinity.
But I also thought, all this problem solving done by the machines, leaves my brain unemployed, well not exactly, I can focus on solving issues that usually take hours to solve and get on with it. However those hard nuts are no longer cracked by me, and I focus on the lighter cognitive load.
Probably not good, but idk, I don't have the luxury to be picky, being an unemployed freelancer on social security
kjkjadksj|7 months ago
fennec-posix|7 months ago
normie3000|7 months ago
ladino|7 months ago
Uehreka|7 months ago
Did you just define a term, act like it already existed, then compliment yourself for coming up with it?
overload119|7 months ago
ozgrakkurt|7 months ago
It makes doing fun work worse but makes going over the hard parts of the work much easier.
Would highly recommend anyone working from home to try using a chronometer
jimbob45|7 months ago
robotic|7 months ago
hattmall|7 months ago
munchler|7 months ago
crtified|7 months ago
But the broad point is valid - distraction and subversion of attention is very high in today's society. Some people are overwhelmed and need to take steps.
mrbluecoat|7 months ago
$249 for a Faraday cage? You can find $10 Faraday bags on Amazon..
blotfaba|7 months ago
I hate this thing. I don't think it added anything to this article to conflate this "study" - did no one stop to think your brain isn't firing on all cylinders when the AI is doing the work because that's what the whole point of AI is?
It's supposed to free up your mind to attend to other matters.
We're not building muscles like we used to when we use tractors and heavy machinery instead of building houses brick by brick by hand either. So what?? Attend a gym and read something technical and dense.
specproc|7 months ago
It's my laptop that eats my brain.
SV_BubbleTime|7 months ago
IF TRUE and taken at face value, surely it could have nothing to do with AI coding being so new everyone just figuring how to best use a new tool at all once.
No no, best to right out the gate compare the new tool to the decades old process.
cadamsdotcom|7 months ago
Gonna have to run some tricksy ads to sell that thing.
constantcrying|7 months ago
>People are forgetting their intentions when scrolling, with TikTok being the most effective at doing this. It takes 25 minutes to get back to focusing on a task, but only a few seconds to lose that focus.
>You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.
>Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x.
>Developers actually take up to 19% longer when coding with AI than without it, but self-report that they were able to complete tasks 20% faster.
All of these are obviously not true. At best some are very strained interpretations of the papers at worst they are very clearly false.
If you believe that "Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50% and reduce your ability to recall information about the task by 8x." or "You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks.", then I have a bridge to sell you. These are so laughably false that it makes the entire sentiment look ridiculous.
People need to be honest about the problems that exist and actually engage with the psychology which drives negative behavior. But to do that the starting point needs to be a clear understanding of what the intentions are. Is TikTok bad, because using it makes you loose focus on other tasks or because you are forgetting your intentions? Certainly a great book does the same exact thing, yet somehow I never see book reading in these articles. So why is one significantly worse than the other? This is obviously a question about values. And unless society can clearly articulate why spending time on reading books is more valuable than spending time scrolling TikTok no change is possible.
wzdd|7 months ago
"You can reverse up to 10 years of age-related cognitive decline simply by blocking mobile data on your phone for 2 weeks": the linked study says that it's attention span that is improved equivalent to being 10 years younger, as measured immediately after the study ends (only)
"Using ChatGPT on cognitive tasks can reduce your brain connectivity by up to 50%": this is measured using an EEG, so is measuring involvement of multiple brain regions while doing a task. Basically your brain doesn't have to work as hard at the task if you're using an LLM. It's not, you know, your connectome atrophying.
senko|7 months ago
That's kind of the point of most tech. Consider:
"In another eye-opening study, researchers have conclusively shown that your muscles atrophy if you're using a forklift instead of your back!"
superkuh|7 months ago
anothereng|7 months ago
catchcatchcatch|7 months ago
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fnord77|7 months ago
this contradicts thought leaders in the field like Andrew Ng
sothatsit|7 months ago
I quite like it actually because although I do use AI, I think you really do have to be careful about how you use it to avoid wasting more time than it saves when you run into a problem and insist on getting the AI to fix it instead of doing it yourself. It is very easy to fall into this trap of trying to get AI to do everything, because our brains are hardwired to avoid effort, and so we use it even when AI is not appropriate.
The biggest time saver for me with AI is to really try to avoid the round-and-round with AI and instead just get AI to take the first pass, maybe some small follow-ups, and then I take it from there and complete the task manually. AI can be a significant time-saver in that first pass at the problem, but after that you can waste so much time trying to get AI to fix something small that you could fix yourself in 5 minutes. And this can be especially damaging because it is less effort to use AI, so we don't necessarily notice when we are wasting time due to our own cognitive biases, which I think this study does a good job of pointing out.
ykonstant|7 months ago
unclad5968|7 months ago
dyauspitr|7 months ago