Hey, have you ever used an AI tool and afterwards
felt a little fuzzy, like your own brain kind
of took a backseat for a bit? Oh, definitely.
It's a weird sensation, right? It really is.
Well, today we're going to take a deep dive into
that very feeling. We're exploring this groundbreaking
MIT study that really unpacks what AI might be
doing to our thinking. But we're also balancing
that. Exactly. Balancing that with some truly
mind -blowing advancements happening in AI itself.
We've pulled together a stack of sources for
you from that key MID research to all sorts of
updates and breakthroughs. It's going to be a
lot to explore. Yeah. What's so fascinating here
is just the sheer speed of change in AI right
now and what that ultimately means for you, the
listener. We're talking about, sure, profound
opportunities, absolutely, but also some really
nuanced challenges, especially to our... cognition
right this deep dive isn't just about what AI
can do though believe me we'll get into some
incredible new tools it's also about what it
does to us and how we adapt or how we should
adapt maybe okay let's dig into this let's call
it concerning finding from MIT It's all about
what chat GPT or, you know, LLMs in general might
be doing to our brains when we use them for stuff
like writing essays. And the core finding, it's
kind of counterintuitive, like you said. Yeah.
AI actually made people better at the task, at
writing, but simultaneously maybe worse at thinking.
Sounds a little wild, doesn't it? It does. So
how did they even figure this out? What was the
setup? Well, the study was pretty rigorously
designed, actually, to isolate these effects.
MIT brought in 54 participants over four months,
all focused on essay writing. Okay. They split
them into three groups. One group used ChatGPT.
Another used Google, kind of like, you know,
how we might have done research back in the day,
just basic search. Right, 90s kid style. Exactly.
And then the third group, totally analog. Just
their brain, pen and paper, no digital help.
Interesting. And the results? They were really
striking. The ChatGPT group showed a significant
drop in brain connectivity, measured by EEG,
you know, mapping brain activity. I mean, it
literally flatlined in some areas during the
writing test. Flatlined? Seriously? Yeah. And
what was even more telling was the follow -up.
When these same ChatGPT users were asked to write
without AI afterwards, They performed like novices,
like people who hadn't been practicing writing
for months, which really highlights the dependency,
you know? Wow. So the brain's literally like
disengaging. That's pretty intense. It really
is. And get this. Here's a truly astonishing
statistic from the study. Okay. 83%. 83 % of
the chat GPT users couldn't quote a single line
they had just written using the AI. 83%. Compared
to what? Compared to only 11 % of the brain -only
group. Oh, man. It's almost like if you let AI
do the heavy lifting, your brain just goes, cool,
I'm clocking out now. That's kind of terrifying,
actually, because here's where it gets really
interesting, you know, the maybe creepiest part.
The users themselves felt fine. They didn't report
any mental fog, no perceived decline, nothing.
Right. The subjective experience was okay. Exactly.
The only way this drop was visible was on those
EEGs. Yeah. It's like this invisible trade -off,
isn't it? You get efficiency, maybe better output
sometimes, but at a hidden cognitive cost. Yeah.
And MIT even coined a term for this, cognitive
debt. Right. Think of it like the Google Maps
effect. Yeah. The more you rely on GPS. The worse
your own sense of direction gets. Exactly. You're
essentially borrowing against your future cognitive
capacity for that short -term convenience. That's
a heavy concept. It is. But, and this is crucial,
the study is absolutely not anti -AI. That's
a key takeaway. Okay, good. Because they actually
discovered a brain -friendly AI workflow within
the study. So it raises this important question
for all of us. How do we engage productively?
How do we use these tools without racking up
that debt? But what did they find? It was a brain
-friendly way. The optimal workflow they identified
was first think, really process the ideas yourself,
then write your own draft, and then only then
use chat GPT to maybe polish, refine, or get
feedback. Ah, so the AI comes in later. Exactly.
And what's truly fascinating here is that people
who used this method, they actually showed stronger
brain connectivity than anyone else in the study.
Stronger than even the brain -only group. Stronger
than the brain -only group. That's a huge insight,
right? It suggests thoughtful AI integration
can actually enhance cognition. Wow. But it really
highlights that if you just rely on AI from the
start, letting it do the initial heavy lifting,
well, your cognitive core can, you know... get
a bit mushy. Right. So if you're still in that
phase of, oh, AI can just write it for me, maybe
rethink that. Let your brain take the wheel.
At least sometimes your hippocampus will thank
you later. That's such an important distinction.
It's not about avoiding the tool. It's about
how you use it thoughtfully. Precisely. But hey,
it's not all about potential brain drain, right?
There's some incredible stuff happening out there,
too. Let's kind of zoom out a bit. Talk about
the broader AI landscape. What's been buzzing?
Yeah, there's a lot going on. For sure. Take
AI video models. Just recently, we saw ByteDance's
Seedance 1 .0 and then this kind of sneaky new
contender, Hailu O2. Oh, yeah. They jumped up
the leaderboards fast. Right. Leapfrogging models
like Google's VO3 almost overnight just shows
how dynamic this space is. Innovation cycles
are shrinking like crazy. Wild. And speaking
of VO3, apparently clever TikTok users. are racking
up millions of followers creating ASMR videos
using its new native audio features. Interesting
use case. Yeah. VO3 seems to be like a goldmine
for creators right now. Oh, and get this. You
can even generate images with ChatGPT just by
texting a specific 1 -800 number on WhatsApp.
On WhatsApp. Really? Yeah. Don't even need an
account, apparently. You get one free image daily.
Have you tried that yourself? I haven't tried
the WhatsApp thing yet, no. But I've seen some
impressive outputs people are sharing. It just
speaks to how accessible these tools are becoming,
you know? Totally. But if we connect this all
back to the bigger picture, it's not just exciting
new toys. There are also some really significant
considerations, things we need to be aware of.
Like what? Well, for instance, Jeffrey Hinton,
you know, often called the godfather of AI. Yeah.
Heard of him. He's openly stated there's maybe
a 10 % to 20 % chance that AI will displace humans
completely in some sectors. He even mentioned
specific fields he thinks face a heavier risk,
saying they should be terrified. Wow. That's
sobering. It is. It's not necessarily a prediction,
more like a stark warning about the potential
scale of disruption. And then you has Reid Hoffman,
LinkedIn's co -founder. What's his take? What's
fascinating about his advice is he's saying things
like prompt hacks and what he calls vibe coding,
you know, just guessing prompts without real
understanding. He says that's not going to be
enough to really thrive. He argues it's going
to come down to actual judgment, critical thinking,
applying these tools strategically. That's what
will differentiate people. That makes sense beyond
just tinkering. Right. And on a really practical
note, something you definitely need to keep in
mind is data privacy. Ah, yes. Important. Our
sources indicate that a pretty significant chunk,
like 63 % of ChatGPT user data, actually contains
personally identifiable information, PII. 63%,
that's high. It is. Yet only about 22 % of users
are even aware they can opt out of data collection.
And crucially, your inputs and outputs, they're
being saved indefinitely. Indefinitely. Okay,
that's something everyone should know. Definitely
something to be aware of, you know, as you interact
with these platforms. Absolutely. That privacy
point is huge, knowing what's happening with
your data. Yeah. But, okay. On a more positive
note for specific industries, we are seeing some
amazing efficiency gains, right? Oh, for sure.
Like Nobla AI. This startup just got $70 million
in Series C funding. Right, for the clinical
documentation tools. Exactly. Used by like 85
,000 clinicians, and it cuts their documentation
time by over 50%. That's pretty huge for healthcare
efficiency, isn't it? Massive. Reducing burnout,
freeing up time for patients. Big potential there.
And then you look at the big players. Amazon
is pouring a massive $100 billion into automation.
Yeah. Over 1 ,000 AI projects underway. $100
billion. Wow. Yeah. But interestingly, they've
also announced some AI hiring freezes in certain
areas. It just shows how rapidly this stuff is
transforming operations across the board. Big
shifts happening. Okay. But here's where it gets
really interesting again. Let's talk about a
major breakthrough. Chinese AI startup, Minimax.
Ah, yes. Minimax and M1. They've kind of changed
the game with their M1 model. We're talking major
leap forward in AI capabilities here. Definitely
pushing boundaries. It's the most impressive
feature. Get ready for this. A one million token
contest window. One million. That's huge. It's
the biggest we've ever seen. Like, wow. Just
massive. The amount of information it can hold
in its working memory. At once. Game -changing
potential. And here's the kicker. Get this. This
whole model. Trained in just three weeks. Three
weeks. That's incredibly fast. For under $540
,000. Under half a million? Yeah. Like not even
close to a million dollars. Yeah. It's pretty
incredible, right? Makes you really wonder about
development costs and accessibility going forward.
That efficiency is almost as impressive as the
context window itself. So connecting this to
the bigger picture, the significance of a 1 million
token context window is hard to overstate. Explain
that. What does it really mean? It means instead
of having that short term memory loss you see
in a lot of current models, you know, where they
forget the start of the conversation. Right.
Very frustrating. This thing can hold an entire
project or a whole book or like a massive code
base in its head and still reason through it
coherently. It basically gives the AI a truly
expansive working memory. OK, so much more capable
for complex tasks. Exactly. Our sources show
it performs exceptionally well across the board,
but it really shines in areas like software engineering.
using tools as an agent and obviously that long
context reasoning. And how did they do it so
fast and cheap? Well, what's fascinating here
is how they achieved it. Minimax used a new reinforcement
learning method they developed called CISPO.
Yeah. Essentially, it's just a smarter, more
efficient way for the AI to learn from trial
and error. This led to a 2x faster training speed
without needing, you know, those colossal GPU
farms or mega budgets. So cleverness over brute
force. Kind of proved that clever architecture
and optimization can actually beat sheer compute
power sometimes, you know. Which is encouraging.
Definitely. And the implications. Well, this
kind of long context capability is what serious
AI agents really need to become practical. Think
about agents that don't forget what you said
five prompts ago or agents that can scan hundreds
of pages of legal documents or medical records
before accurately answering your questions. Right.
Handling human scale data. Exactly. It truly
opens the door to like personalized memory systems,
much smarter assistants, reliable legal or medical
AI. This is a. pretty transformative for practical
applications down the line. So, wow. We've really
gone on a journey here from the subtle kind of
unseen ways AI might be like changing our brains.
The cognitive dead idea. Yeah. To what's buzzing
in AI tools right now, the good and the concerning,
all the way to this massive breakthrough in long
context models with mini Macs. It's a lot. It
is. It's clear AI is advancing incredibly rapidly
on so many fronts and understanding its impact,
both the good and the. potentially challenging
is just crucial for all of us navigating this
absolutely ultimately I think this deep dive
really shows us AI's immense potential but also
that vital need for intentional, thoughtful engagement.
It's about how you choose to integrate it into
your workflow, into your life, not just letting
it passively take over or accepting its influence
without question. Right. Being deliberate. Yeah.
Which raises an important question maybe for
you listening. How does this information shape
your approach? How will you think about learning
and working with AI going forward? Something
to definitely consider. Exactly. It's not about
being anti -AI, not at all. It's about being
smart about how we use these incredibly powerful...
Powerful tools. Well said. So maybe the next
time you reach for an AI tool, just pause for
a second. Ask yourself, is this enhancing my
thinking or is my brain kind of clocking out
here? Think about it. We'll catch you on the
next deep dive.