HPR4476: Does AI cause brain damage?

Hacker Public Radio

This show has been flagged as Explicit by the host.

Quick-Glance Summary

• I walk you through an MIT experiment where 54 EEG-capped volunteers wrote essays three ways: pure brainpower, classic search, and ChatGPT assistance.
• Brain-only writers lit up the most neurons and produced the freshest prose; the ChatGPT crowd churned out near-identical essays, remembered little, and racked up what the researchers dub cognitive debt : the interest you pay later for outsourcing thought today.
• A bonus “switch” round yanked AI away from the LLM devotees (cue face-plant) and finally let the brain-first team play with the toy (they coped fine), proving skills first, tools second.
• I spiced the tale with calculator nostalgia, a Belgian med-exam cheating fiasco, and Professor Felienne’s forklift-in-the-gym metaphor to land one mantra: *scaffolds beat shortcuts*.
• We peeked at tech “enshittification” once investors demand returns, whispered “open-source” as the escape hatch, and I dared you to try a two-day test—outline solo, draft with AI, revise solo, then check what you still remember.
• Net takeaway: keep AI on a leash; let thinking drive, tools navigate .
• If you think I’m full of digital hot air, record your own rebuttal and prove it.

Resources

MIT study

• MIT Media Lab. (2025). Your brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of cognitive debt. https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/your-brain-on-chatgpt/

Long term consequences

(to be honest - pulled these from another list, didn't check all of them)

• Clemente-Suárez, V. J., Beltrán-Velasco, A. I., Herrero-Roldán, S., Rodriguez-Besteiro, S., Martínez-Guardado, I., Martín-Rodríguez, A., & Tornero-Aguilera, J. F. (2024). Digital device usage and childhood cognitive development: Exploring effects on cognitive abilities. Children , 11(11), 1299. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11592547/
• Grinschgl, S., Papenmeier, F., & Meyerhoff, H. S. (2021). Consequences of cognitive offloading: Boosting performance but diminishing memory. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology , 74(9), 1477–1496. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8358584/
• Ward, A. F., Duke, K., Gneezy, A., & Bos, M. W. (2017). Brain drain: The mere presence of one's own smartphone reduces available cognitive capacity. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research , 2(2), 140–154. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/691462
• Zhang, M., Zhang, X., Wang, H., & Yu, L. (2024). Understanding the influence of digital technology on cognitive development in children. Current Research in Behavioral Sciences , 5, 100224. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266724212400099X
• Risko, E. F., & Dunn, T. L. (2020). Developmental origins of cognitive offloading. Developmental Review , 57, 100921. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32517613/
• Ladouceur, R. (2022). Cognitive effects of prolonged continuous human-machine interactions: Implications for digital device users. Behavioral Sciences , 12(8), 240. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10790890/
• Wong, M. Y., Yin, Z., Kwan, S. C., & Chua, S. E. (2024). Understanding digital dementia and cognitive impact in children and adolescents. Neuroscience Bulletin , 40(7), 628–635. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11499077/
• Baxter, B. (2025, February 2). Designing AI for human expertise: Preventing cognitive shortcuts. UXmatters . https://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2025/02/designing-ai-for-human-expertise-preventing-cognitive-shortcuts.php
• Tristan, C., & Thomas, M. (2024). The brain digitalization: It's all happening so fast! Frontiers in Human Dynamics , 4, 1475438. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/human-dynamics/articles/10.3389/fhumd.2024.1475438/full
• Sun, Z., & Wang, Y. (2024). Two distinct neural pathways for mechanical versus digital memory aids. NeuroImage , 121, 117245. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811924004683
• Ahmed, S. (2025). Demystifying the new dilemma of brain rot in the digital era. Contemporary Neurology , 19(3), 241–254. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11939997/
• Redshaw, J., & Adlam, A. (2020). The nature and development of cognitive offloading in children. Child Development Perspectives , 14(2), 120–126. https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/cdep.12532
• Geneva Internet Platform. (2025, June 3). Cognitive offloading and the future of the mind in the AI age. https://dig.watch/updates/cognitive-offloading-and-the-future-of-the-mind-in-the-ai-age
• Karlsson, G. (2019). Reducing cognitive load on the working memory by externalizing information. DIVA Portal . http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1327786/FULLTEXT02.pdf
• Monitask. (2025). What is cognitive offloading? https://www.monitask.com/en/business-glossary/cognitive-offloading
• Sharma, A., & Watson, S. (2024). Human technology intermediation to reduce cognitive load. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association , 31(4), 832–841. https://academic.oup.com/jamia/article/31/4/832/7595629
• Morgan, P. L., & Risko, E. F. (2021). Re-examining cognitive load measures in real-world learning environments. British Journal of Educational Psychology , 91(3), 993–1013. https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjep.12729

Podcast episodes that inspired some thoughts

• Felien Hermans (NL)
• Tech won't save us
• Screenstrong Families

Provide feedback on this episode.