AI causes brainrot

[o48o]

So, there was a study (not yet peer reviewed), and results probably surprises anyone.

Group's brains were measured with a method known as Dynamic Directed Transfer Function (dDTF), that basically measures connections on the brain.
It was measured on using LLMs during tasks, using search engines, and using just their own skills unaided.

And compared to baseline (not surprisingly) LLM group had significant drop in brain activity.

My take from this is that, in a long run, if unaided group would keep using their brains for tasks, they would develop their brain because of training, while AI group would eventually lose even their existing skills (at least when it comes to writing essays). Because if you don't use your brains, those connections on the brains wouldn't be needed either.



There are ways to use AI that benefits people, but using that for your creative work, or anything that needs brains is just killing your brains.

[Vod]

So, there was a study (not yet peer reviewed), and results probably surprises anyone.

Group's brains were measured with a method known as Dynamic Directed Transfer Function (dDTF), that basically measures connections on the brain.
It was measured on using LLMs during tasks, using search engines, and using just their own skills unaided.

And compared to baseline (not surprisingly) LLM group had significant drop in brain activity.

Nature has adopted the "use or lose" method because we have limited resources.  Reduce gravity and your muscles lose mass as they are not needed as much.    But to stop using a tool because it weakens you is silly.   Most people alive have a drop in brain activity when driving since we no longer need to shift gears, monitor speed, check blind spots, etc.  When my mother moved from a washboard to a washing machine, never once did I hear her complain she was losing strength.      And no gen Zer will ever do math on a calculator to keep their brain sharp.   Some things are no longer needed.

So where was this drop in activity?  Wouldn't be everywhere in the brain - probably the areas required for the task AI was doing.  If I have AI write redundant code, the right side of my brain should not be affected.  If it draws a picture, I should still be as sharp in math as I am now.   Some skills are no longer needed.

Finally, nothing is rotting - we are not losing brain ability like in a stroke.   Everything that you lose because of a tool can be relearned if you lose that tool.    Some things are not worth worrying about.  

[o48o]

So where was this drop in activity?  Wouldn't be everywhere in the brain - probably the areas required for the task AI was doing.  If I have AI write redundant code, the right side of my brain should not be affected.  If it draws a picture, I should still be as sharp in math as I am now.   Some skills are no longer needed.

I was talking about this in last paragraph:

-cut-
... while AI group would eventually lose even their existing skills (at least when it comes to writing essays).
-cut-

Finally, nothing is rotting - we are not losing brain ability like in a stroke.   Everything that you lose because of a tool can be relearned if you lose that tool. Some things are not worth worrying about.  

Who is worrying? "Rotting" is a hyperbole, but using meme terminology is fitting here.

What LLMs are doing aren't in comparable to wikipedia or your mom's washing machine.

What i am talking about is creativity, which is basically problem solving that you need in coding as well. And sure, you can relearn skills, but if you stop using for example your legs for significant amount of time, you lose muscle, and if there comes a time when you need to walk without help, you might not have that half a year to train yourself back to shape because you needed that ability now. So why wouldn't you keep that skill up now?

We are talking about strengthening links in your brain. You don't learn your skills that you have forgotten how to do back in a day. Not to mention when it comes to people born today, and if you have used AI since you were born.

[coin-investor]

My take from this is that, in a long run, if unaided group would keep using their brains for tasks, they would develop their brain because of training, while AI group would eventually lose even their existing skills (at least when it comes to writing essays). Because if you don't use your brains, those connections on the brains wouldn't be needed either.

Are we to assume that we are going to lose our skills with these AIs? All I know is that once we acquire our skills, we have them for life, even after years of not using them, we always have them, because it's embedded in our subconscious mind.
A driver, even if he hasn't driven for years he can still drive; you never unlearn your skill, it just modifies. I don't know, but a writer is always a writer with or without the aid of AI, Whether it's your passion or a hobby, you have a writer's knack and spontaneity, you have it subconsciously.

There are ways to use AI that benefits people, but using that for your creative work, or anything that needs brains is just killing your brains.

Only drugs kill your brain, not a tool to enhance your creativity, that's all I know. I guess it depends on how you use these AIs.

[Hispo]

Well, to me is not surprising actually.
If one wants to be good at swimming, dancing, playing baseball or anything, then it is important to start from the ground up and get better with practice, it is the same when comes to activities with need mental effort like learning a new language, writing and essay, translating a document or sorting out documents for people to find easily. With time and without further practice and effort our minds get numb and we get accustomed to a machine to do everything for us.
As it stands, the effects of long term AI use within working environments has not been studied yet, but I would not be anything beyond the scope of reality if more studies in the future showed the same negative results on individuals of all kind and working within all kinds of jobs where computers are required to enhance productivity.

[o48o]

-cut-
Are we to assume that we are going to lose our skills with these AIs? All I know is that once we acquire our skills, we have them for life, even after years of not using them, we always have them, because it's embedded in our subconscious mind.

A driver, even if he hasn't driven for years he can still drive; you never unlearn your skill, it just modifies. I don't know, but a writer is always a writer with or without the aid of AI, Whether it's your passion or a hobby, you have a writer's knack and spontaneity, you have it subconsciously.

Only drugs kill your brain, not a tool to enhance your creativity, that's all I know. I guess it depends on how you use these AIs.

This is not how skills work. You'll eventually forget even a language if you are not using it. Skills require constant practicing if you don't want your skills eventually degrade.

Driving a car doesn't require much skill tbh because driving is pretty intuitive process. Main thing you need to remember are the rules. There aren't even that many of them, and you pay attention to them by just walking in the traffic, because you don't want to get a hit by a car. But you eventually lose most of that skill without practicing. Or why would competitive drivers need to practice ever again after they had polished their skills?

I am guessing you didn't read the study. Because by not using your neural connectivity patterns means that you eventually weaken them, and lose them. Also most drugs don't weaken those connections. Not using your brain does.

[Marvelockg]

There are ways to use AI that benefits people, but using that for your creative work, or anything that needs brains is just killing your brains.

AI is never a substitute for the usage of the brain as long as you're not abusing it. It's artificial intelligence which practically means that it was never designed to function in  the capacity that the brain functions. A lot of brain work is pretty easier now than it used to before the usage of AI became rampant and all is supper to be to the credit of it. Of cause, there's no way AI can be smarter than mans thinking when it comes to real problem solving but for the aids it prefers, we have to appreciate the fact that it has made life pretty better than it was in the days.

Even after sourcing our information online, my brain always takes out what's good from what's not good even if the information is generated via AI. A lot of yh complex real life shit are being carried out by humans and till date, the percentage of the population of people that are yet to have access to internet and that are using AI is still much which still means that the world is pretty much modest in her reliance on information gotten from the brain.

[BADecker]

AI is flawed in several ways. However, it is supremely good enough to make some things work accurately... things like rapidly developing a basic website for you.

There are books out there that show people how to develop their thinking abilities. Such development actually grows inter-brain connections.

We have known for almost 3 decades - maybe more than 3 - that the brain can re-develop (re-grow) itself over time.

The point? Us all three of the above to develop intelligence while moving your life forward. In other words (as an example) Use AI to develop a basic website because it is fast. But learn the programming yourself, and then check up on what AI did to build the website. And then tweak the site in ways that you want, that you couldn't easily express to AI to get it to do the job for you.

Grow your brain and intelligence while using the advantages of AI to get a job done. It might be that AI would add things that you would never think of. But learn the whole thing so that you can tweak it all your way.

[aoluain]

I agree OP, I have read a few articles about the subject in the last week but I can
only find two of them >

 https://www.vice.com/en/article/humans-are-getting-dumber/

This article also mentions Social Media and "endless scrolling" as well as the trend
of offloading tasks to AI.

There will definitely come a time where people wont/cant work because AI
has taken their jobs and people will just vegitate and look at screens all day with
nothing else to do because AI is doing it for us.


> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jun/09/lecturers-are-struggling-with-students-use-of-ai

Students in a lot of cases are using AI to create essays, that article actually points
to the decline of the human intellect.

The article I cannot find again is more linked to social media but has been scientifically
proven that we are getting dumber because of social media which I suppose is a form
of AI through algorithms?

[Vod]

What LLMs are doing aren't in comparable to wikipedia or your mom's washing machine.

What i am talking about is creativity, which is basically problem solving that you need in coding as well. And sure, you can relearn skills, but if you stop using for example your legs for significant amount of time, you lose muscle, and if there comes a time when you need to walk without help, you might not have that half a year to train yourself back to shape because you needed that ability now. So why wouldn't you keep that skill up now?

We are talking about strengthening links in your brain. You don't learn your skills that you have forgotten how to do back in a day. Not to mention when it comes to people born today, and if you have used AI since you were born.

Hey, that's my mom you are talking about!  

Legs are a bad analogy - everyone has that skill and no one would stop using their legs if they didn't need to.  Something more realistic would be playing the guitar.    You stop playing guitar for a significant amount of time, it takes you time to relearn.  (You lose muscle memory and need to re-learn) Why wouldn't you keep that skill up?   There are a number of reasons people get bored of playing guitar.

Isn't creativity your interpretation of things you have seen and heard?  Isn't your unique interpretation based on your unique experiences in life?   LLMs are large datasets of organized information - creating a new piece of art or music is not magical - it's just AI designing music the same way Taylor Swift does, except it can scratch out and rewrite a million times faster.  

What AI does today is enhance your creativity.   You can tell it your idea and it will create it and it will be a unique piece of art with the same value as if you made it yourself.    If it steals the tempo of one song and a few lines from another, it's no different than what any other artist does.

But what about non creativity, like the protein folding discovery?   Millions of people ran it as their screensaver for a decade but AI solved it.  Can we agree that AI is helpful in some areas?

[EluguHcman]

There are ways to use AI that benefits people, but using that for your creative work, or anything that needs brains is just killing your brains.

There are certain level some human brain capacities can not reach, it might be technical or as difficult as it maybe for them to bear and after much brainstorming, the use of AI can be used as a source tool to research that difficult line and breakthrough.

The creativities we talks about often is nothing but our capacities to develop new things or provides solutions without a copyright while it may not be limited to carry on researches probably AI or any other sources.
Leaning on others already done works would make fool of you and weakens your thinking faculty at your own capacity to be creative and could discourage your independency on strategic concerns or technical factors.

No wonder during the days of our father's in the late 50's and 60's where AI has not been. A trend their system of education was more genuine in impacting schoolers knowledges than it is in this generation.
That is why even as today, those old days people who went through schools their elementary levels seems almost equivalent to today's generation Schoolers in the university levels due to over independent  of AI just to get quick solutions.

[Kelward]

It is said that most people don't utilize a vast part of their brains throughout their lifetime while those that do are the reason why we are enjoying good and easy life today. Somebody invented the calculator and students don't want to use their brains to calculate, they need a calculator to calculate simple equations. To write a simple essay people needs AI to do the job, the more innovative technology gets is the more that humans become lazy to solve little problems by themselves.

Computerized intelligence or artificial intelligence is no doubt beneficial because they get things done and sorted out faster and easier, they are also very convenient. But we should try as much as possible not to totally rely on them to get things done for us, let them be aids when it's necessary.

[Apocollapse]

I agree with Vod.

I can draw, even there are many AI sites can generate a drawing from text and sometime I use it for references, it doesn't make me to lose my creativity. Instead it adjust my creativity, in the past I need to search many drawing for my references, now I have to be creative in making prompt to generate the drawing I wants.

AI could causes brainrot, only for someone who completely relying on AI without learn and improve it using their skills.

[Vod]

AI could causes brainrot, only for someone who completely relying on AI without learn and improve it using their skills.

I would argue that even interacting with AI keeps your brain sharper than doing nothing, but it also depends on your stage of life.   When I tried to have 100% program a chrome extension, I learned about manifests and listeners, but I also forgot a years worth of university education from 30 years ago.   

When driving during rush hour, I'll use Gmaps to find the fastest route but I can still drive to my destination with it.  I'm not losing my driving skill, but I am losing knowledge of directional landmarks. 

It is said that most people don't utilize a vast part of their brains throughout their lifetime

If that were true, our brains would shrink and women wouldn't scream during childbirth.     Cat scans show we all use 100% of our brain, but some of us build more indexes.   As one ages, less mental organization leads to drastic slowdown in thinking.   Less understanding leads to stress, which is why educated and active people live the longest.

[o48o]

But what about non creativity, like the protein folding discovery?   Millions of people ran it as their screensaver for a decade but AI solved it.  Can we agree that AI is helpful in some areas?

I said that "There are ways to use AI that benefits people". For example AI is excellent for making tasks that can organize and compare different databases, among other things. It has a power to follow simple commands to perform are series of different, rather complex tasks that would require ton of organizing and repetitive work otherwise.

And that's just for starters. Ai can solve how to combat diseases as well how to create stronger diseases. And it come come up with optimal solutions in complex game theories, that would take ages to solve otherwise.

What i was doing was referring to results EEG was giving while writing an essay, and made my own conclusions from it. If there would have been similar drop in brain activity with search engines, i would be talking about search engines as well.

Btw, your mother's washing machine was an example, and i should have talked about all machines in general. Moms are cool ♥.

[Vod]

Btw, your mother's washing machine was an example, and i should have talked about all machines in general. Moms are cool ♥.

lol - it's something I type out everytime someone mentions a/my mother.  I saw it on an episode of The Office (US).   The actual quote is "WOAH, that's my mom you're talking about!" but I couldn't find a good image to show you.

Recently I used AI to write a recursive function, something I had not done personally in years.   Now that it reminded me I know it, the knowledge all came back (I was surprised) but I did forget my mom's middle name for a while...   

(That is a test lol)

[passwordnow]

Prompting will be the next thing for the creatives to be more productive. Change is constant and we have to adapt. Just as what these known tech people say, it is not AI that will replace the jobs of everyone but it is the person who knows how to utilize and use them. And that's why we have to take this change and adapt it because there is no other direction where this innovation is going but straightforward.

[jvanname]

People using AI already have brainrot because they went to a fucked up university that promotes violence. AND YOU ARE ALL TOO FUCKED UP TO REALIZE THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM!

Regards,

-Joseph Van Name Ph.D.

[btc78]

you are absolutely right it has taken our ability to think and have critical thinking skills it has taken our abilities to make art and be creative it’s sad because there are thing that are supposed to be human or made by human like art

ai is not supposed to be used for makinb art it was supposed to be used for better working conditions like processing up an operation etc

[BADecker]

AI was made to take the human factor out of higher math. Mathematicians found that Quantum Math presented different CORRECT results, depending on the mathematician doing the math. AI is supposed to find out what is really right by taking the 'human' factor out of higher math.