Fariha Afsar
Long time, no writing! Um, yeah. I tried so many times to write something, but somehow never got the chance. It’s not like I was busy or something; it just slipped my mind. And yep, when it did occur to me, I had become so good at procrastinating.
Anyway, recently I’ve been brooding over the impact of AI on our lives, especially our brains. Almost each and every person has become so good at using ChatGPT, or any other AI model but is this really good for us? Although I am not really interested in using AI for writing, but somehow getting quick answers to problems related to day-to-day stuff used to make me use it.
And then I got to observe something; my brain was getting weaker in thinking clearly on it’s own. Small little things were slipping from my mind. I stopped at the spot.
Let’s hear what neuroscience say about the AI and brain connection. Obviously, it’s not going to be good. Studies show that when we use AI for thinking, our brain loses the ability to think for ourselves.
The human brain is the most complex organ, and likewise, it needs complex tasks to make itself sharp and strong. There is a beautiful term in neuroscience called ‘neuroplasticity ’. It’s the process where, when we learn new things or embark on a new task, our brain also grows and develops. It implies that the more difficult the task we do, the more our brain grows. Simple.
Well, it’s the same for exercise too, isn’t it? Harder exercises, stronger muscles.
But of course, now we have become so prone to using AI for every small or big task that the neuroplasticity of our brain has started to decline.
This is not all. Studies show that when people rely on AI to write for them, they tend to remember less. And when they read AI-generated summaries rather than reading the whole actual documents for things, they again remember less.
As a result, we have fewer ideas, our creativity drops, we think less critically, and we remember things less.
There is another bigger problem. AI greatly affects our Metacognition. Metacognition is the ability of our brain to think about its own thinking and decisions. It’s like a small pause in our brain when we ask ourselves, at the time of decision-making, questions like Why is this? Or what does this really mean? And the like. But because of AI, our brain no longer asks these questions, as the chatbots are too confident in delivering answers to our questions; thus, we accept whatever AI says without a counterargument.
Studies show that when we no longer use our brain, its function gets worse. Let’s take the example of the decline of brain creativity. Previously, whenever we used to do some tasks, we were bound to make so many bad decisions and actions before arriving at the actual results, and in this process our brain used to get good at problem-solving and thinking from multiple points of view.
But now, we don’t really do that. We give our ideas to an AI, and it generates a perfect action for us, and we obey it without a second thought. And no, I don’t think that it’s good for saving our time, because we are no longer thinking from different perspectives, and that’s why the brain’s creativity is declining sharply. In simple terms, we are getting dumber day by day.
It reminds me of the movie Idiocracy. Worth a watch if you haven’t.
The lazier we become, the dumber we will get, and we will be ruled by the ones who will be somehow less idiotic than us. Essence of the movie. But if you look around you, the reality is not so different.
Some scientists believe that in the past human beings had a tail as a body organ, but they were not using this organ, so eventually it disintegrated from the human body. But are we not doing the same to our brain in the AI world? I mean, building a website or any other app, etc is fine, but the most important skill that we humans have, which is the ability to think, we are submitting that task to an AI. That was the only skill which used to separate us from animals. SIGH!
The world is growing fast, and everywhere you look, you are advised to be quick too. Quick in your decision-making, quick to follow some social media influencers and quick in leading life in general. These billionaires that we see on the internet, they also push us to be fast-paced; otherwise, we will be left behind, as they claim. But what’s wrong with being steady and slow?
What’s wrong with taking your time, thinking about a matter and then taking action? Being fast can only get us into a situation where we will later regret it because, let’s be honest, the best decisions in history and life have not been taken in the blink of an eye. A huge amount of thought and time has been invested before creating something innovative and magnificent.
And because of this noise of the internet and the influencers, we have been plunged into following the crowd rather than listening to our own minds. What do we actually want from life, and where do we want to go? We are working on autopilot, without realising it, and we are not even sure what we actually want.
The conclusion really wants me to quote a few verses from my favourite poem ‘The Road Not Taken’ by Robert Frost;
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —–
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.