Is AI Hurting Our Brains?
Early studies suggest that unrestricted use of AI may be harmful to our cognitive health
Everyone is talking about AI. LLMs like ChatGPT have taken the world by storm. Whatever kind of information we want is at our fingertips. You can ask LLMs about medical advice, financial advice, recipe ideas, and more. Type in a request and in seconds you’ll have an answer. The average person now has access to PhD level knowledge. This has to be a net gain for humanity right? Maybe not.
Early research results point towards some concerning results.
A 2024 article in Frontiers of Psychology introduced the concept of “AI chatbot-induced cognitive atrophy.” It argued that overreliance on AI chatbots (AICs) can cause a deterioration in key cognitive abilities such as critical thinking, analytical skills, and creativity. They further noted that this negative effect is more pronounced in younger users “whose fundamental cognitive skills are still developing.” The paper further warns “that excessive dependence on AI tools may hinder the natural acquisition and mastery of more complex abilities.”
An MIT Media Lab study found that adults who relied on ChatGPT for essay writing exhibited lower brain engagement across multiple brain regions (as measured by EEG) and performed worse on measures of linguistic and behavioral complexity compared to those who used their own brains or even a conventional search engine. The longer these ChatGPT users continued to use it for essay writing, the worse was the cognitive decline.
A 2024 systematic literature review found that frequent use and reliance on AI dialogue systems among students is associated with declines in cognitive abilities, particularly with respect to critical thinking, creativity, information retention, and independent problem-solving.
These early results shouldn’t surprise us. We have known for a long time that our brains act like a muscle. If we exercise our brains, they get better at thinking. If we neglect learning, memorizing, or thinking, our cognitive abilities decline.
Impact on Personal Knowledge and Learning
It is so easy today to get answers to any question via A-eye, no matter how deep or complex. When I was young, before the Internet became publicly accessible, to get answers to complex questions or topics, I had to visit a library and often, I needed the librarians’ help locating the resources I needed to find the answers I was searching for. At the library, I could find knowledge at varying levels of complexity from children’s books on the topic to full on PhD level texts. As a young person that was lacking formal academic training on any given topic, being able to understand the more advanced texts proved problematic and a major challenge to overcome.
Today, none of these challenges exist anymore. The Internet made available vast stores of knowledge in the comfort of one’s own home. AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT now go much further. These LLMs can interpret PhD level material for me and provide me with an interpretation at whatever reading level and education level I request. I no longer have to work to understand PhD material. I can just ask questions of the LLM until I understand the subject matter to my level of satisfaction.
At first glance, this appears to be a major benefit to humanity. Information is being democratized and made accessible to the masses regardless of academic experience. The problem arises when you consider that learning happens best when we have taken the time to struggle against the subject matter ourselves. When learning is easy, the brain doesn’t have to work hard. When the brain doesn’t work hard for the information, it doesn’t retain that information well. Neural connections to that information in our brains isn’t well formed. It is very easy for us to forget what we have learned when what we have learned has come easily to us.
Cognitive Bias goes Unnoticed
Cognitive bias is a systematic error in thinking that affects how we process information, perceive situations, and make decisions. These biases occur because our brains use mental shortcuts to manage the overwhelming amount of information we encounter daily. Cognitive bias is usually unconscious. We typically aren’t aware when they are influencing our judgment.
Early studies show that LLMs both have their own cognitive bias based on the materials used to train it and they also work to reinforce cognitive bias in their users. This bias is not understood or recognized by most LLM users. Often they don’t even know to consider bias in the results. As a result, the LLM can be inadvertently reinforcing users bias and not presenting a balanced, factual presentation of truth on any given topic.
According to the study, LLMs can reinforce bias in three main ways:
Framing Bias: LLMs may rephrase or summarize material with a more positive or negative spin than the source, affecting the way users interpret the original information.
Primacy/Exposure Bias: LLMs often focus on information presented early in the source, leading users to prioritize that information in decision-making.
Confirmation/Authority Bias: Hallucinated or strongly worded answers may be taken uncritically by users, reinforcing their own assumptions (confirmation bias) or leading them to defer to the LLM's output as authoritative (authority bias).
What does this bias mean for the Christian Community?
These results highlight the importance of education for our young people on the risks that LLM use can bring. We live in the age of “fake news” and the age of rampant propaganda. As a direct result of algorithms created by the Big Tech and Big Social Media companies, people have become intolerant of any view that differs from their own. We see this playing out in the political arena. Left and Right are more polarized and triggered than ever before.
In the midst of this confusion, AI promises to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back. The spark that lights the flame of the total breakdown of society. More than that though, AI can easily help speed up the decline of Religion and Christianity in particular among the young generation.
The general trend of education over the last while has been to radicalize people, especially on the left of the political spectrum. Lately, especially in the United States, we are seeing a strong pushback from the Right against the ideologies the Left has been pushing for decades.
What does this polarization have to do with Christianity? No matter where you find yourself on the political spectrum, the Bible and Jesus Christ in particular introduced a third option, the Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom is not based on the values of this world. The beliefs of God’s Kingdom are many times opposite to what the world teaches. Too few Christians understand the differences. They call themselves Christian while pushing worldly political ideology whether left or right.
Are you ready for a fresh perspective?
God calls us to step away from the confusion and chaos of the world. Revelation 18 states:
And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. (Revelation 18:4-5)
At the beginning of the Bible in Genesis 12 we find God calling Abraham out of Ancient Babylon, the land of Chaldea, and at the end of the Bible we see this call for God’s people to come out of spiritual Babylon. God calls us to abandon the values of this world and step out into a life of faith based on the values and beliefs of God’s Kingdom. In Hebrews 11 we see a list of some of the biblical heroes of the faith. They all had to make hard decisions about how they would live their life. Why? They had their eye on a different homeland than the one they were born in.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:13-16)
You and I need to have the same perspective these ancient faith heroes had. We must value Kingdom values rather than what the world is peddling. The same goes with our use of LLMs and AI in general. These technologies are built with human values that are often in conflict with God’s Kingdom values. They are biased in their results and can provide convincing arguments for why a person should reject God’s values. Our young people are no exception. They are actually more susceptible to being carried away by the culture’s values messaging than adults are. They also generally have less protection against that messaging because of their lack of biblical knowledge and experience.
Do we reject all AI and human knowledge?
No, knowledge has its place as long as we keep it in the proper context and in its proper place. Something must be the foundation. We must hold onto some version of reality. Who will we believe?
With the understanding that LLMs, like people, can be biased and can twist truth, it is imperative that we not only learn to study for ourselves and to do the hard work of learning, we also must pass on the importance of doing so to the next generation. Otherwise, we risk having them be captured by an artificial echo chamber. Victims of confirmation bias by an expert AI capable of adjusting and responding to the human user in a way to keep them trapped in a web of deceit.
When Jesus walked the earth he stated in Matthew 18:8b,
"when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
Satan and God are battling for the hearts of humans worldwide. Each of us must make a choice on what we will believe. Which reality will we accept? Each one owes it to themselves to study the Bible and not to take the word of the Preacher or the AI. If we are determined to know the truth and we are ready to take no shortcuts in the procurement of the truth, God will reveal himself to us.
"And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:13-14a)
Joseph Duchesne is the creator of The Church AI Guy, a space where faith meets innovation while discussing the long-term impact of AI. A pastor, autodidact, and author of two books—The Last Crisis and Discover the One—he’s passionate about showing how Jesus-centered discipleship can thrive in a digital world. When he’s not experimenting with the latest tech, he’s reading theology, building church community, or spending time with his wife.
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