{"id":3028,"date":"2025-07-17T14:48:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T14:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/3028\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T14:48:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T14:48:04","slug":"to-avoid-ai-rotting-your-brain-use-these-tips-for-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/3028\/","title":{"rendered":"To avoid AI rotting your brain, use these tips for exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interested in more careers-related content? Check out our new weekly Work Life newsletter<\/a>. Sent every Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n

When we stop exercising, our muscles weaken. Will the same happen to our brains as we embrace artificial intelligence?<\/p>\n

That concern gained added attention when a recent MIT media lab study found users of large language models such as ChatGPT \u201cconsistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioural levels.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ethan Mollick, the Wharton School professor who has emerged as a leading figure keeping tabs on AI for the public, stresses the actual study is much less dramatic than the media coverage. And he reminds us that Plato thought writing would undermine our wisdom.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean we shouldn\u2019t worry about how AI impacts our thinking. After all, a key purpose of technology is to let us outsource work to machines,\u201d he writes<\/a> on his blog. \u201cAnd, when we outsource our thinking, we really do lose something.\u201d <\/p>\n

Storing phone numbers in a mobile\u2019s memory has reduced our ability to remember them, for example.<\/p>\n

He notes AI use can clearly hurt your mental growth when you are trying to learn or synthesize new knowledge. If you outsource your thinking to the new technology instead of doing the work yourself you miss the opportunity to learn. AI is trained to be helpful and answer questions for you, so even if you only ask for guidance you might get an answer.<\/p>\n

He also warns against the anchoring effect: Once you see AI\u2019s ideas, it becomes much harder to think outside those boundaries. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo how do you get AI\u2019s benefits without the brain drain? The key is sequencing. Always generate your own ideas before turning to AI. Write them down, no matter how rough. Just as group brainstorming works best when people think individually first, you need to capture your unique perspective before AI\u2019s suggestions can anchor you,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Then use AI to push ideas further. An example: \u201cCombine ideas No. 3 and No. 7 in an extreme way.\u201d After you get the answer, he recommends this nudge: \u201cEven more extreme.\u201d Or, an oddball prompt to spark unusual notions, \u201cUse superheroes as inspiration to make the idea even more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

He avoids AI in writing first drafts. Then he feeds his draft into various AI models asking them to act like a reader: \u201cWas this unclear at any point, and how, specifically could I clarify the text for a non-technical reader?\u201d <\/p>\n

Also, he asks it to be an editor: \u201cI don\u2019t like how this section ends, can you give me 20 versions of endings that might fit better.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neuroscientist and blogger Anne-Laure Le Cunff echoes that approach in her prescription to avoid ChatGPT rotting your brain: Write first and then bring in AI to refine later. Other tips:<\/p>\n

Stay actively involved: Don\u2019t let AI do all the thinking. \u201cUse it to support your process such as brainstorming ideas and rephrasing sentences, but make sure you\u2019re still wrestling with the core concepts yourself. That sense of effort is a signal you\u2019re learning,\u201d she writes<\/a> on her Ness Labs blog.Use AI to challenge your thinking, not replace it: You want it to poke holes in your arguments or suggest counterpoints. Prompts she recommends: \u201cWhat am I missing?\u201d or \u201cDo you notice any illogical statement here?\u201dBe mindful of over-reliance: The more you lean on AI to handle entire tasks, the less you may remember how to do them yourself. She acknowledges that is fine for some tasks but wrong for other situations. Be intentional: If there\u2019s something you\u2019d like to keep on being able to do yourself, guard against over-reliance. <\/p>\n

Marketing consultant Ann Handley loves the way AI had helped to speed up her writing by finding information fast but even more she appreciates that it gives her space to \u201cthink longer and weirder and to follow side-thoughts and tangents.\u201d<\/p>\n

She can more easily draw connections she might have blown past in her quest for productivity. \u201cMy brain sometimes acts like a raccoon on cocaine: Rushing around in a frenzy to call this thing DONE instead of going a little bit slower and a little bit deeper. Paradoxically, the fast tech of AI helps me slow down,\u201d she writes<\/a> on her blog. <\/p>\n

Ms. Le Cunff, the neuroscientist, sums it up: \u201cThe real question isn\u2019t whether you should use AI, but how you use it. Like any tool, it can either sharpen or dull your skills depending on your approach. Keep your brain in the loop and AI can be a powerful partner instead of a crutch.\u201d <\/p>\n

Quick hits<\/p>\n

Emergencies should be rare, advises<\/a> time management specialist Laura Vanderkam. If emergencies routinely occur \u2013 for example, regularly missing meetings because something just came up \u2013 you need to make a change in your systems and processes. Even in jobs known for emergencies, she notes, there are standard processes in place to limit last-minute scrambling. Career coach Jenny Wood says in her newsletter<\/a> instead of asking yourself whether you are ready to leave your current job ask if you are building what you need to make that jump. Grow your skills, visibility and relationships so you will have something to land on. Nobody has it figured out, insists<\/a> author Mark Manson. Every confident person still feels insecure. Every successful person still fails. Every happy person still struggles.<\/p>\n

Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn\u2019t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Interested in more careers-related content? Check out our new weekly Work Life newsletter. Sent every Monday afternoon. When…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3029,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,4082,49,48,4083,4081,61],"class_list":["post-3028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-brain-rot","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-how-to-use-ai","tag-ordid20000","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3028"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3028\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3029"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}