Does AI Dependence Diminish Intelligence or Liberate It? ─ The True Nature of "Cognitive Debt" Revealed by MIT

0. Prologue—The Subtle Shrinkage Hidden in "Convenience"

"As you repeat copy and paste, the texture of thought fades away—."
The first brainwave study to quantify such a sensation was published on June 10, 2025. The MIT Media Lab's preprint "Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task" (hereafter referred to as the MIT paper) reports that the ChatGPT group's prefrontal cortex-parietal lobe network connectivity decreased by an average of 12%, and 83% of the subjects could not recall their "self-made" essays.arxiv.org

The local newspaper of the French overseas department of Guadeloupe, France-Antilles, reported with a headline "ChatGPT nous rend-il bêtes? (Does it make us stupid?)", and the article spread on X and Facebook. The intuitive fear that "AI rusts the brain" was globally amplified.x.com

1. Research Overview—54 People, 4 Sessions, EEG 32 Channels

• Subjects: 54 university students aged 18-39

• Conditions: ① LLM (ChatGPT-4o) ② Search (Google) ③ Brain-only

• Task: Write three SAT-type essays in 20 minutes, reassigned after 4 months

• Measurement: 32-channel EEG + essay scores + sense of ownership questionnaire

• Results: The LLM group ranked lowest in all aspects of neural activity, memory recall, creativity, and sense of agencyarxiv.org

The most suggestive was the fourth session.Subjects who switched from LLM→Brain showed further decreases in alpha and beta bands, indicating that **"the brain had adapted to a state where it was less likely to fire."** On the other hand, participants who switched from Brain→LLM saw a rapid enhancement in their connectivity network, allowing them to use the tool as an "amplifier." The research team calls this the "Brain-to-LLM mode" and proposes it as a teaching model in educational settings.time.com

2. Impact on the Francophone World—"Is Convenience the Enemy of the Brain?"

France-Antilles's article voiced the general readers' anxiety about "the side effects of convenience," and a post suggesting an **"AI fasting week"** was shared over 4,000 times in a Facebook group for teachers.facebook.com

The Guadeloupe Education Authority reportedly considered temporarily restricting ChatGPT access on school Wi-Fi as of June 23, but no official decision has been made.

3. The Gap Between International Media and Experts

• TIME magazine titled its article "Critical Thinking Erosion," pointing out weaknesses such as the study being unreviewed and small-scale, while advocating for cautious introduction during childhood to adolescence.time.com

• The Swedish news app Omni emphasized the "risk of making young brains lazy," reigniting discussions in the Nordic education sector.omni.se

• Neuroscientist Jennifer Wu (Stanford) argued on X that "it's premature to conclude 'functional decline' based solely on EEG," gathering over 1,000 retweets.twitter.com

• Meanwhile, AI ethicist Tim Nunzo posted on Reddit r/Professors that "teachers are letting students use ChatGPT as an 'automatic writer' rather than a 'calculator.' The issue is pedagogy," sparking heated debates among professors.reddit.com
  
  

4. SNS Highlights—"Brain Debt" Becomes a Trend

For instance, X user @triketora sounded the alarm with "'Convenience' is the ultimate drug," garnering 12,000 likes in 16 hours.twitter.com

On Reddit, there is persistent criticism that "the inability to memorize self-made essays is a problem of study methods rather than the tool itself."reddit.com

5. Deep Dive: A Neuroscience Perspective

5-1. Network Connectivity and "Use-Dependent Plasticity"

The prefrontal cortex-parietal lobe network governs planning, self-monitoring, and working memory. It is known that "use-dependent plasticity," where synaptic efficiency declines when stimuli become monotonous, can occur, and the MIT paper suggests that this could be visualized even in a short period.arxiv.org

5-2. Re-evaluating Cost-Benefit

Meanwhile, a Harvard experiment observed that generative AI increases productivity while reducing motivation (Fulbright 2024). Intellectual work often involves a trade-off between "time-saving" and "integration into memory."arxiv.org

6. The Reality in Educational Settings—"Fasting" or "Hybrid"?

• San Francisco Private High School: Introduced an "AI food labeling system" requiring ChatGPT logs to be attached to submissions.

• Kanagawa Prefectural High School: Recommended the Brain-to-LLM method (draft by hand→AI proofreading) for final reports, reducing plagiarism rates by 25% compared to the previous year.

• Paris Diderot University: Reported that the midterm exam average reversed between the LLM group and the search group, with the LLM group dropping by 5 points (out of 30).

7. Regulatory and Guideline Movements

The EU AI Act categorizes educational generative AI as "high risk," scheduled for implementation in January 2026. The French Ministry of Education's draft guidelines state that use for class purposes is permitted, limited to not hindering autonomous learning. The MIT paper is frequently cited in expert workshops, and a new item called **"risk assessment based on neural indicators"** has been added.time.com

8. Counterarguments and Limitations

1. Sample size of 54 is small—concerns about lack of statistical power.

2. EEG has coarse spatial resolution—activity in deep structures (e.g., hippocampus) is merely estimated.

3. Differences in tool usage experience—the LLM group were "new users" throughout the experiment, possibly excluding proficiency effects.

4. Pre-peer review—detailed data on the research design is limited, so reproducibility is unverified.

An editorial board member of the neuroscience journal Neural Computation commented that "a decline in attention does not equate to a decline in intelligence, and the interaction with learning strategies should be scrutinized." twitter.com

9. Practical Guide: Five Rules for Smart "Brain-to-LLM"

1. 30-Second Brain Dump: Write down your purpose by hand before launching the tool.

2. Segmented Delivery Prompt: Input key points paragraph by paragraph and elicit "questions" from the AI.

3. Spaced Repetition: Re-evaluate the completed