I asked ChatGPT, I asked Grok

Bonjour,

An industry with zero taste and seemingly unlimited travel stipends will descend on the most beautiful place on earth next week. Pray for us.

Also, we’re taking a summer hiatus from our livestream, so if you want to hear from a dumb bitch, just call me.

ily,

Writer: Natasha 
Editor: Miranda

We’ll be hanging beachside with Polygon on Tuesday. Here is your last chance to request RSVP!

Like any good week, the meme formats that are hitting the timeline speak to a greater reality of the days we are living in.

The first format, “‘I asked chatgpt’ ‘I asked grok’ well I asked”… is a perfect way to highlight how cultured you are and how cognitively lame us LLM users have become.

Next up, cursor but for highlights the good and important work that AI could never.

Both of these formats, in a very dumb way, reveal a reality that is for better or worse upon us: that many of us are becoming increasingly reliant on LLMs to do things for us, like reading, thinking, writing, and feeling.

In a very smart way, a group of researchers out of MIT have been working on a project entitled Your Brain on ChatGPT and the results are notagood.

This group of researchers recruited 54 participants to write essays, divided them into three groups (with a fourth group added after the initial test), and monitored their brain activity during the exercise. Here is the group breakdown:

Group 1: LLM assistance

Group 2: Search engine assistance

Group 3: Brain only

Group 4: LLM-assisted group, then writes a brain-only essay

In short, what they found, unsurprisingly, was that Group 1 had significantly less cognitive activity, became increasingly reliant on the tool, and had little to no recall of what they’d written just moments prior.

The discourse around this has been plentiful, with some saying “sounds like a skill issue,” others saying “we’re too early,” and many arguing that our future selves and the world around us will adapt, just like we did with calculators, spell check, and Google Maps.

The thing I find most concerning here is that this group of researchers, who have the highest level of credibility and have spent the better part of the last year doing this work, have gone on record to say that none of the leading AI companies have reached out to help continue their research.

It’s still very early days, and I am personally pro-technology and pro-innovation. But I do have a fear that we are set to repeat history. Just like with Zuck, social media, and Facebook advertising 10 years ago, the inevitability of conflicting motivations between capitalism and what is good and best for humanity will come to a head, and most likely the loser will be me.

Anyway, have we ever stopped to consider that chat doesn’t want to hear from us?