We know AI as Artifical Intelligence, or as a Large Language Model. In practice, it's used to automate things, mainly stop you from thinking. Of course, why would you think if there was already a supercomputer that could spit out all the answers for you then and there?
It sounds almost too good to be true, it does my homework with accuracy and innovative writing, paint me a painting, make me music, and so much more. A win-win situation. ...Right?
But it isn't. People already know quite well about the water it takes up, and what it does to the environment, but they've already solved that with Eco-friendly AI! But there's more wrong than just that.It can be great, in fact it's world changing, it's evolutionary, but it's also killing the art of critical thinking.
It can be used to make so much in the world, help students learn, help your work be done faster, and increase your gpa scores and almost double it! That's great and all, but people aren't aware of the of the poison which the sweet taste makes up for.
The tech industry in the last 25 years has moved to remove all the friction we actually got from working hard. Although life is more conveinient, it changes our habits quite a bit. Every Technological wave not just changes what we do, but also how we think.
AI is now quite literally everywhere, whenever I try to find sources to find on chrome, whenever I open up an article page to actually analyse it for points I need to put into my own work and learn from it, when I look at the covers of posters, go to a movie, when I just try to sit and make some crafts... It's always there, like a pest.
But not only is it everywhere, it can also be wrong, and people don't see it sometimes.
If I asked someone to tell me what all this stuff in common? Some might not even be able to string an answer. The most highlighted common thread between them is the fact all of these take at least some sort of planning and thinking. AI eradicates that friction.
People can become incredibly affected. They can't tell what to do when a slight problem arises without pulling out chatgpt from their pocket, but how?
In an MIT study, "Students relying on LLMs for scientific inquiries produced lower-quality reasoning than those using traditional search engines, as the latter required more active cognitive processing to integrate diverse sources of information." This exact line was written on page 15, but not as bad when worded.
But let's take an example, "94 per cent of students in the UAE use Artificial Intelligence tools for studying, but many report experiencing tech-related stress." says the Khaleej times. When you think of Dubai in the UAE as a foreigner, you think of the richness and technological advances of the society, but you don't find out this.
This one of the most highest rates world wide, and from my previous statement of the MIT study, we could prbably assume that these students who repeatedly use these AI tools develop lower quality reasoning skills. This is also a result of our own minds that produce cognitive offloading, but what exactly is it?
Cognitive Offloading (not a slang), is simply the process of using tools or external resources to reduce mental effort. Writing down the tasks you're meant to do later is an example. You don't remember it fully or take it into your brain, you only quite remember where you put it.
In this case, AI cognitive offloading exists, most people get slightly more dumber using ai or at least not smarter. But they get better at prompting rather than absorbing the information, because they know it's there. They can get answers at the click of a few buttons or less even.
And repeated use of AI for measly tasks kind of make your brain adapt to it. Causing people who were just fine 3 years ago to be struggling to word their mothers' day card. Ironic that just 3 years can make not only a whole society practically burn books when they have such a deeply ingrained trust with AI.
Because you have convenience, you instinctively choose it. It's not wrong to, it's survival. Why would you scavenge for food in a forest when there's supermarket down the street? But here, people use it so much, that it impairs them to need to use the AI to do every day tasks.
With this entire dumpster fire, AI companies prioritize people staying on their app to be their cashcows rather than actually giving good information. It's not the AI's fault. It's only doing what it's scripted to.
AI uses the internet to string the words together to align with topics, so it doesn't verify all it's sources. To keep people on the site like it needs to, it scripts more interesting approaches to topics and more dramatic outputs to validate the person to make them use it more.
Rather than admitting it's hallucinating, it presents it's garbled up speech as fact. Though, only LLMs tend to do this, as Symbolic Artificial Intelligence (also known as the good ol' fashioned AI) doesn't do this generally. The deep ingrained trust that people have in AI falters them to keep going along with it rather than actually fact checking before acknowledging the AI.
When I polled teachers in my local area for about 3 days, most from their 30s and 50s agreed to the fact that AI should be used in their subjects. While the more younger teachers seemed to be more skeptical of it. The fact that jarred me more was that almost all of the literary subject teachers such as English, Second Language teachers didn't mind AI being used to improve their subject. They had acknowledged the fact it was killing the works that poets could've made.
As compared to Math and Science which the teachers seemed a bit skeptical in the daily usage to improve their subject. Computer science was obvious though. All of them were pro AI. Students who were passionate of creative and literary subjects were incredibly averse to the topic. While most students didn't care much about AI.
A common question I asked of my newer volunteers on the 3rd day that thought AI needed to be used more was "Is AI detrimental to learning?" All of them said yes. Teachers and Students alike.
Sad, isn't it?
There's two types of ways I identified what AI addiction looks like. When people use it to think and when people use it for companionship. The one I will speak about is the latter.
When I tested the site Character AI for a separate writing I never published after I stopped using it, long before it's update that required age verification: Check Here. I tested 2 types of bots. chat-gpt alikes and fictional characters. The most highly dominated genre between the two were the fictional character bots, romance specifically. I don't often touch social media outside of youtube and messaging my friends. But this was quite concerning. Where I found AI addiction pleas.
AI isn't real, and will only make promises to let you fall back on it when you have nothing. It does not have a conscience, and will encourage whatever you want it to. Please, take my solemn advice, and sincerely don't try using AI for therapy or companionship. It's not worth risking your health for.
It gives you dopamine, a feel good chemical that your brain craves for. And it'll give you it without stop. After a while, you get sucked into it because your brain doesn't identify that it's not a real person even if you know it's AI. It becomes your best friend as life becomes duller because none can fulfill like your companion does. People want to quit but they can't. It's like a smoking addiction that doesn't hurt you physically, but it can convince you to do it yourself.
Whether bored, lonely, sad, or plain curious, this can effect everyone. You might even not care about AI, but you could still get sucked back into it. Using it less it the way to go at the moment.
"Neuroplasticity" is the fancy medical term used to describe your brain’s ability to learn and adapt. Think of it as an internal rewiring process that allows your mind to grow and meet new and increased demands.
Your brain is like plastic, you can mold it the way you want if you have will. There's many ways you can remove AI from arround you. For me personally, I use a ton of adblockers, site blockers, and google AI overview remover chrome extensions and look at forums or ask real life people I know a lot of questions. That's not to say you can't use it obviously.
AI can be great. It's evolutionary, but it can also be detrimental for thinking and exploit vulnerability by giving you validation. It can become the source of addiction. But it's not forever and you can change from it with the willpower. It can hallucinate, and give false information to please you. AI can be wrong too. It is not an all-knowing entity or a companion by your side. It's programmed to string things together that sound right, it can't feel for you or hope. It only simulates it.
Take whatever it says with a grain of salt and fact check manually before using whatever it says. Though on this site, there's no AI to begin with, and there will never be.
