Large Language Muddle | Issue 51 | n+1 | The Editors Highlight

In this the essays seem at first only to repeat the pathological chattering-class fixation on elite colleges and the perpetual downslide of the American mind. But the numbers are scandalous. Forty-two percent of undergraduates use AI at least once a week; anywhere from 50 to 90 percent have used it to cheat on their schoolwork. AI’s observed effects on an already screen-addled and pandemic-frazzled student body are bleaker still. In a widely cited study by MIT researchers published in June, participants who wrote SAT-style essays with the assistance of ChatGPT engaged a narrower spectrum of neural networks while writing, struggled to accurately quote what they had just written, and — thanks to generative AI’s inbuilt tendency toward cliché — used the same handful of refried phrases over and over. The study’s authors warned that habitual AI use could lead to “cognitive debt,” a condition of LLM dependency whose long-term costs include “diminished critical inquiry,” “increased vulnerability to manipulation,” and “decreased creativity.” It turns out your brain, like love or money, can be given away.