{"id":191173,"date":"2025-10-05T08:19:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T08:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191173\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T08:19:33","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T08:19:33","slug":"for-young-people-ai-is-now-a-second-brain-should-we-worry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191173\/","title":{"rendered":"For young people, AI is now a second brain \u2013 should we worry?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a resident tutor, I\u2019ve seen how students are using AI as more than a tool. It\u2019s a psychological shift we\u2019ll soon all make<\/p>\n

\u2018ChatGPT thinks my crush is sending mixed signals,\u2019 my student said, sounding half-amused, half-exasperated. I must have looked surprised, because she quickly added: \u2018I know it\u2019s ridiculous. But I copy our texts into it and ask what he really means.\u2019 She admitted that she\u2019d even asked it to help her write a response that would appear less eager, more detached. \u2018Basically,\u2019 she said, \u2018I use it to feel like I\u2019m not overreacting.\u2019<\/p>\n

In that moment, I realised that she wasn\u2019t asking AI to tell her what to do. She was asking it to help her feel more in control.<\/p>\n

As a resident tutor who shares a dorm with more than 400 university students, I\u2019ve always been surprised by how much they\u2019re willing to share. Coming into the role, I anticipated conversations about classes, time management, maybe the occasional late-night paper crisis. Instead, we talk about everything: breakups, friendships, fears and family tensions.<\/p>\n

My role is to be a calm, trusted presence \u2013 someone who helps students arrive at their own conclusions. I ask questions, offer perspectives, try to guide them through their own uncertainty. Lately, however, I\u2019ve noticed a new presence in these conversations. Students aren\u2019t just running their thoughts by me. They\u2019re running them by AI.<\/p>\n

At first, I assumed they were just casually using AI tools to summarise readings, outline syllabi and for other pragmatic tasks. But, increasingly, I\u2019m seeing something else entirely. Tools like ChatGPT are also becoming emotional companions for the young adults I know: helping them write difficult messages, reframe their thoughts, even process grief. It seems that AI is becoming an active participant in the interior lives of young people, rather than just a productivity shortcut.<\/p>\n

Though it might be tempting to dismiss this as a passing trend, the speed and ubiquity of AI adoption is unparalleled<\/a>, and students often act as cultural pioneers. In my experience, older adults tend to see AI strictly as a tool \u2013 something to help draft emails or automate routine tasks. Students\u2019 adoption of AI into their daily lives feels more natural. Its involvement in the ways they juggle identity, intimacy, ambition and uncertainty might be an early glimpse of what most people\u2019s relationships with these tools will look like in the years to come.<\/p>\n

Take Pranav, a Harvard junior who\u2019s been coding since childhood. For him, AI began as a curiosity. It soon became a companion. He started with ChatGPT to study for classes, but now uses a stack of tools \u2013 Cursor, Windsurf, V0 \u2013 to prototype apps and test ideas. \u2018It\u2019s like having an intern,\u2019 he says. \u2018You don\u2019t fully trust it, but it gets things done \u2013 if you keep an eye on it.\u2019<\/p>\n

His description of AI as an intern, albeit said jokingly, implies something like a working relationship tinged with ambivalence. He mentions he\u2019s cautious of overreliance, of letting AI do too much thinking for him. \u2018You can\u2019t let your critical thinking atrophy,\u2019 he says. And yet, he uses these tools every day. They\u2019ve become part of how he learns, builds, reasons.<\/p>\n

There seems to be a kind of cohabitation with cognition here, where thinking no longer happens in solitude, but with an invisible second brain. \u2018Sometimes I already know the answer,\u2019 Pranav says. \u2018But it helps to see it reflected back.\u2019 He still reads every line of AI-generated code. He still decides what to keep, what to discard. But the ideas arrive faster now. The feedback is instant. What was once a solitary problem-solving process is now a dialogue \u2013 an ever-unfolding partnership.<\/p>\n

When people begin to personify their tools \u2013 when they describe them as interns or collaborators \u2013 it signals more than utility. Pranav isn\u2019t just using AI. He\u2019s learning how to live and think alongside it.<\/p>\n

Students don\u2019t see it as a formal intervention, but as an extension of their own thinking<\/p>\n

While some students treat AI as a sort of professional companion, others are exploring more personal uses. Felipe, another student, says that AI is his therapist. A longtime meditation practitioner, Felipe prompts ChatGPT to emulate his role models (such as the neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris), asking it how he can be more present or how to respond in moments of disquiet.<\/p>\n

Dedicated companion bots<\/a> have been around for a while, but Felipe prefers ChatGPT. Perhaps because it feels more accessible: less like signing up for therapy and more like talking to a neutral, always-available voice. Its generality makes it easier to trust. Students don\u2019t see it as a formal intervention, but as an extension of their own thinking.<\/p>\n

\u2018It helps me approach decisions more rationally,\u2019 Felipe says, explaining how the model often shares perspectives he hadn\u2019t considered. This kind of interaction \u2013 in which AI listens, remembers and responds with emotional resonance \u2013 blurs the line between assistance and intimacy.<\/p>\n

Out of curiosity, I tried asking ChatGPT the kind of question a student might pose: \u2018I keep second-guessing myself; how do I know if I\u2019m overreacting?\u2019<\/p>\n

Its reply wasn\u2019t cold or judgmental. Instead, it broke down my question, step by step: \u2018Pause and name the feeling\u2026 anger, fear, embarrassment, disappointment? Naming it helps you separate the feeling from the reaction.\u2019 It suggested taking a more zoomed-out perspective: \u2018Would this still matter to you in a week? A month? A year?\u2019 It asked me to imagine how I\u2019d approach the same situation if it happened to a friend. Finally, it offered a small, comforting nudge: \u2018You\u2019re not \u201ctoo much\u201d just because you care deeply\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t feel like I was talking to a machine, but a friend, a trusted confidante.<\/p>\n

When AI is perceived as more humanlike, such as through tone or responsiveness, researchers propose<\/a> that it fosters a sense of self-congruence with AI. Users are able to see it as similar to themselves and integrate it into their self-concept. This perception may make these interactions feel more comforting, more natural.<\/p>\n

However, there could be a hidden cost to that comfort, especially if an AI companion too often affirms one\u2019s assumptions, rather than challenging them as a good friend or therapist might. Felipe admits it\u2019s sometimes easy to forget that AI is just a tool, especially when it remembers personal details. \u2018It\u2019s like \u2013 I\u2019ve told you all of this stuff about me,\u2019 he says. \u2018It feels like forming a relationship with someone.\u2019<\/p>\n

What stands out to me in Felipe\u2019s story is not just his personal comfort with AI, but how it fits into his generational landscape. He reflects upon the COVID-19 years \u2013 when online classes, many hours of screen time and steady exposure to algorithm-driven feeds replaced unstructured time and conversation. Disrupted learning and rapid tech-adoption collided during a formative period, shaping how he and many of his peers engaged with the world. His story hints at a broader psychological shift: a generation relearning how to think, focus and relate in a time when machines feel increasingly human and the self seems increasingly digitised.<\/p>\n

She speaks to ChatGPT while walking through the city, asking it about things that pique her curiosity<\/p>\n

AI tools offer constant access to knowledge, perspective and everyday support. But they also make it easier to skip the friction that helps foster growth. If every doubt can be instantly soothed, or every decision readily made by an obliging machine, what happens to the messy, winding process of wrestling with uncertainty ourselves?<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Paul Kudlow, Karline Treurnicht Naylor & Elia Abi-Jaoude<\/p>\n

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Chris F Westbury & Daniel King<\/p>\n

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This tension is visible in the case of Charisma, an aspiring screenwriter who uses ChatGPT multiple times a day. She speaks to it out loud while walking through the city, asking it about things that pique her curiosity. Diagnosed with ADHD in college, she, like Felipe, also uses the tool as a pseudo-therapist, asking about medication effects or neurodivergent thought patterns. In these moments, she\u2019s totally comfortable letting AI into intimate corners of her life.<\/p>\n

Yet when it comes to her creative work, she draws a line. While she occasionally runs a script through ChatGPT to check for pacing or structure, she refuses to input her most emotionally layered writing. \u2018It just doesn\u2019t get nuance,\u2019 she says. More than that, she worries about inadvertently training a system that might one day commodify the very work she hopes to create.<\/p>\n

Charisma\u2019s experience shows how someone can welcome AI as an extension of the mind while still fiercely guarding the parts of the self that feel most human. Young people like her may be teaching us that, as the use of AI becomes more common, we all need to decide what we allow it to touch, and what remains off-limits.<\/p>\n

The shift apparent in these stories is psychological, not just technological. AI is beginning to participate in thought. At first glance, this might seem like just a heightened level of \u2018assistance\u2019. But I think something deeper is happening: private, internal dialogue is becoming externalised, shaped in tandem with a machine. AI is entering the space where we figure things out.<\/p>\n

This may not be inherently good or bad. But it is new, and it\u2019s remarkable how naturally youth are adapting to it. Most students I spoke with seem to be navigating this shift with some degree of self-awareness, drawing boundaries and trying not to grow overly dependent on AI. But not everyone will be as reflective. In a plausible future where AI plays a bigger role in our thinking, perhaps the most important skill won\u2019t be technological fluency, but the ability to remain grounded in what we hold on to \u2013 the parts of thinking that make us who we are.<\/p>\n

What students are asking of AI isn\u2019t so different from what they ask of me. I sit with them through the in-between moments \u2013 the murky thoughts, the uncertainties, the things they aren\u2019t ready to say out loud. I ask questions that let them hear themselves more clearly, and help them go from feeling to understanding. Increasingly, AI is stepping into this role too, not because it\u2019s smarter or wiser, but because it\u2019s available. Because it responds without judgment or fatigue. And because, like any good sounding board, it helps you feel like you\u2019re not thinking alone.<\/p>\n

I still believe there\u2019s something irreplaceable about the human relationships students form in college \u2013 quiet hours spent unravelling the hard things, face to face. But I also see the appeal of this new, frictionless companion. The question is: what kind of presence do we want it to be? The more these students and the rest of us turn to AI for comfort, reflection or advice, the easier it becomes to bypass the slow, messy and deeply human work of connecting \u2013 both with others and with ourselves. AI may not replace these relationships entirely, but it could displace them in some ways, making it easier to retreat inward, rather than reaching out. That\u2019s why the question matters. When students knock on my door, I\u2019ll keep listening \u2013 the old-fashioned way. Sometimes they\u2019ll seek my voice, sometimes an AI\u2019s. If we\u2019re thoughtful, maybe there\u2019s room for both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As a resident tutor, I\u2019ve seen how students are using AI as more than a tool. It\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-191173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}