Is ChatGPT Making You Smarter… or Softer?
MIT says your brain might be skipping leg day. Let’s fix that.
We all love shortcuts.
GPS tells us where to go.
Google tells us what to think.
And ChatGPT? It thinks for us.
But here’s the problem:
When you outsource thinking, your brain stops showing up.
MIT just dropped a study that’s basically a red flag for anyone building their career (or identity) using AI tools alone.
📊 The Study: Brains vs. Bots
MIT researchers had 54 people write essays for 4 months.
Three groups:
One used ChatGPT
One used Google
One used just their brain
They strapped EEGs to everyone.
Then watched what happened.
TL;DR: ChatGPT users’ brains got lazy.
Brain activity weakened.
Connectivity dropped.
And when they wrote without AI later, they looked like total beginners.
The kicker?
83% of ChatGPT users couldn’t recall a single line they had just written.
The brain-only group? Only 11% had that problem.
Let that sink in: You wrote something — and minutes later, your brain had no record of it.
🧠 The Cognitive Debt You’re Not Noticing
This isn’t about AI being bad.
This is about how you’re using it.
MIT coined a term: Cognitive Debt.
It’s like credit card spending for your brain.
Convenient now, costly later.
It’s the same reason relying on GPS shrinks your spatial memory.
Taxi drivers in London literally have larger hippocampi because their brains had to memorize routes.
What you don’t use, you lose.
🏋️ Think of It Like a Gym
Using ChatGPT to do your thinking is like using a weight belt for every lift.
Sure, you’ll move heavy stuff.
But your core turns to tortellini.
The goal is to use AI like a spotter, not a substitute.
Here’s what actually works (yes, the study backed this):
Do the thinking first
Write your ideas raw
THEN use ChatGPT to refine, edit, reframe
That way, your brain gets the reps.
And AI becomes your strength amplifier, not your mental wheelchair.
🧩 The Big Takeaway
AI is a tool.
But so is a hammer — and you don’t build a house by handing the hammer to someone else.
If you let AI think for you, you’re slowly outsourcing the parts of your brain that made you valuable in the first place.
But if you think with AI — using your own cognitive muscles first — you’ll get the compound gains of creativity + clarity + speed.
That’s how you Build Different.
P.S. I use AI every day. But only after I think through the problem myself.
That’s the strategy.
Not dependence — enhancement.
Don’t skip leg day for your brain.
— Caleb