A MIT study confirms what teachers and trainers experience every day: the passive use of artificial intelligence leads to cognitive atrophy. But there were no electrodes to understand it: just enter a class
They called it “cognitive debt”: it is the reduction of brain activity observed by a group of Mit researchers in those who write texts by relying on artificial intelligence. Their study, “Your Brain on chatgpt”shows that those who rely on the AI to write forget more quickly, think less and produce less creative and personal texts. A brain on the bench, waiting for the algorithm to play it. But for those who work in the school, this is not new. For months-and in an increasingly evident way-students have used chatgpts as a research super-motor, an ally-compliance that carries out a search that brates already beautiful and finished, which translates into a whale, which resolves, which composes: a perfect tool to find shortcuts rather than to open new roads. And so the tasks assigned at home-without thinking about those carried out in class with under the underhaban technological aids-all resemble each other, the arguments are emptied, the critical thinking dissolves in a well-formatted copy-paste, with all due respect to teachers who do not notice a little, a little doubt, a little become investigators, a little denounce and consequently begin to fight with everyone, Azzarto that a job has been done with Chatgpt is the new infamous accusation not to pronounce. Artificial intelligence thus becomes a disengagement exercise: the end of the effort, not the beginning of knowledge. This was the case with television, when he abdicated his information and even formative activity of the early years to leave room for increasing entertainment, up to constant tanning. This was the case for smartphones, more powerful than television, therefore more distracting, more disturbing if used badly, and so it happens, just look around, looking up, in fact, from your phone. Now it happens, or has already happened, with an even more powerful and subtle tool, artificial intelligence. Powerful because technology interacts more and more and curves its action based on requests, of all kinds. Subdile because it disguises itself even more as an ally to carry out work, or study, or knowledge, so as to be not arginable, too comfortable, intelligent, useful.
It is a predictable china, because it repeats itself over the years: there are critics of the first hour, there are the dazzled dazzles of the first hour, there is the use that is massive, there is the absence of any regulation mechanism, there is that at a certain point the school is asked to form and form low cost, as if it were the unique imputed school and thus guilty of new crimes against the critical spirit. The school has its responsibilities, but do not reside in the lack of training on the AI of the teaching staff, rather in being increasingly welcoming – bearer of curiosity, well -made work, accuracy – and less and less selective – yes, because the school body is so delicate and in balance that should guarantee both welcome and selection, in different ways, at different times, but without renouncing anything. A school that opens to everyone and that is capable of showing – and of teaching – care and beauty is the best viaticum to open the doors of the future, including artificial intelligence, and the question – mind you, because it will end like this! – does not resolve with a course that teachs to set up a prompt Effective, but with engaging lessons carried out by prepared teachers, motivated and legitimized by decent social and working conditions. In short, we are always at the same requests, unheeded and perhaps true for this. The MIT put the sensors, but the school had already set its eyes. Now that science also certifies the danger, is the time to rethink the way in which Ai enters the classes: not as a substitute for thought, but as its ally. As long as we start from us, not from the car.
