MIT Takes Shots At ChatGPT

The Coming “Cognitive Debt”?

A recent MIT study sent a shockwave through the conversation about AI, warning of a potential "cognitive debt." Researchers observed users of ChatGPT and noted a significant drop in brain activity, painting a potentially grim picture of a future where our reliance on technology causes our own minds to atrophy. It’s a doomsday scenario: that in our quest for efficiency, we are outsourcing our ability to think, and will one day be unable to pay the intellectual price.

MIT Study Bottom Line

First it’s worth noting that the paper hasn’t been peer-reviewed (Nataliya Kosmyna, the main author said that She didn’t want to wait to get this information out, believing irreparable damage could be done to users in the time it would take to complete a peer-review. This is spin for “We only ran this with a sample size of 54 people and a peer-review will likely take most or all of the sensationalism out of this story which will deeply jeopardize chances of getting published in outlets like TIME… so we’re just going to release it now.”)

That being said, to their credit they do leave their conclusion somewhat open-ended with the tail end of the article containing the true crux of the matter. Speaking of the test group which was allowed to use ChatGPT to write an SAT-level essay, Kosmyna said:

The TIME article follows this with the paper’s silver-lining (aka: the hedge) that when the control group (The ones who were only able to use their brains to write the essay) were asked to rewrite the essay using ChatGPT, the TIME’s article states:

This much more closely mirrors my own experience with using AI in writing. But more on that in a minute… First I want to touch on these modern-day Luddites; or rather, show how the original Luddite’s probably had less in common with the authors of this paper than one might initially imagine.

The Specter of the Luddite

This fear of technology is not new. When we hear it, we often think of the Luddites. The name itself has become an insult, conjuring images of angry, irrational mobs smashing the automated looms that heralded the Industrial Revolution. They are cast as the villains in the story of progress, a cautionary tale of those who blindly and violently stood in the way of the future.

But to see them only as rioters is to miss the point entirely. Imagine their reality. These were not simply workers; they were skilled artisans whose craft was their life, their identity, and the only thing standing between their family and starvation. They lived in an era with no social safety net. When a machine arrived that could do their job for a fraction of the cost, it wasn't an abstract threat to their industry; it was a direct threat to their next meal. Their fear wasn't of the future; it was of destitution. Their fight wasn't against technology, but against a system that was ready to discard them without a second thought, a reality made brutally clear when the government sent in the military to crush their dissent.

Then vs. Now: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle

Of course, things are very different now. We have support systems and social contracts that, while imperfect, are worlds away from the brutal landscape of the 19th century. Yet, the MIT study's central fear, that AI can make us lazy, isn't entirely wrong. The impulse to take the easy route is human.

But the study is fundamentally misguided. It's a lab result, created in a vacuum that lacks the single most important factor that drives human achievement: competition.

In the real world, when a powerful tool like AI becomes available to everyone, it doesn't create a permanent shortcut to success. It simply raises the bar. The baseline for what is considered "good" skyrockets across every creative and business process. In an environment where everyone can generate content, designs, or code with ease, mindlessly copying and pasting the output from a machine will be the fastest route to irrelevance. That kind of low-effort work will be immediately identifiable as generic and soulless, and it will fail to break through the noise of a million other people doing the exact same thing.

Laziness will always be laziness, and there will never be more than 24 hours in a day. If everyone has the same access to AI and the same amount of hours to toil at their craft, the advantage doesn't go to the person who can type a prompt the fastest. It goes to the person who can think critically about the output, who has the taste and “attention to detail” to refine it, and who possesses the unique vision to guide the tool toward a truly meaningful outcome. One thing will never change: Value comes from solving problems, not from higher velocity.

AI will accelerate the pace, but it will also dramatically increase the requirement for quality. True effort, discernment, and creativity will not only still matter—they will be the only things that do.