Hey everyone, it's Cosmo.

MIT just dropped a bombshell study: ChatGPT literally rewires your brain. They hooked up 54 people to EEGs while writing essays and found something disturbing – AI users showed systematically weaker neural connectivity across all frequency bands.

Translation? Your brain works less hard when ChatGPT does the thinking.

The Memory Problem

Here's the kicker: 83% of ChatGPT users couldn't quote a single sentence from essays they'd written minutes earlier. Zero percent could quote correctly. Meanwhile, people writing without AI had near-perfect recall.

It's not just convenience – we're literally encoding less into memory.

The GPS Effect, But Worse

Remember when we actually knew how to get places? Before GPS, we had mental maps. We understood our cities, memorized routes, recognized landmarks. Now? We're lost without the blue dot.

AI is doing the same thing to our thinking, but deeper. The MIT study found that even after people stopped using ChatGPT, their brains showed "cognitive debt" – weaker neural patterns that didn't reset to normal levels.

What We're Really Losing

The researchers call it "germane cognitive load" – the mental effort that actually builds knowledge and memory. When ChatGPT handles the heavy lifting, we bypass the very friction that makes us grow.

The struggle itself has value. Those theta and alpha brain waves that fire during unassisted writing? They're not inefficiency – they're the neural equivalent of lifting weights.

The Creative Paradox

My kids will grow up generating art with text prompts and conjuring virtual worlds from thin air. Will they ever pick up a paintbrush? Learn to struggle through writing their first terrible story?

The tools are incredible. I use ChatGPT and Claude to help write this newsletter. But every time I lean on them too hard, I feel my writing muscles getting weaker. Now I know why – MIT proved it's literally happening in my brain.

The Question That Matters

We're running a massive experiment on human cognition. The question isn't whether to use these tools – that ship has sailed. The question is how to use them without losing the parts of ourselves that matter most.

Maybe the answer is simple: use AI like you'd use any powerful tool. Let it handle the mundane so you can focus on what's meaningful. But never forget that your brain needs exercise, just like your body.

Your brain on ChatGPT might be more efficient. But efficiency was never the point of being human.

Magic Beans of the Week

Thank you for reading. Till next week! 😊

Best,
Cosmo