David Epstein Profile picture
May 11 8 tweets 1 min read Read on X
A new study from MIT just revealed something huge about AI. And if you use ChatGPT for work, school, or writing, you need to hear this:
Researchers ran a simple experiment. Students wrote timed essays using only their brains, their brains plus Google, or their brains plus ChatGPT.
The ChatGPT group didn’t just do worse. They couldn’t remember a single accurate quote from what they had just written.
The researchers called this cognitive debt. You save effort now but pay for it later with weaker thinking and recall.
But here’s the twist. When students started with their own brains first, everything changed.
They wrote first, then used ChatGPT afterward. Their essays improved, and they remembered what they had written.
Their measured brain activity stayed high. No collapse. No mental shortcut.
But students who started with ChatGPT got stuck in the mental groove the AI created, even after it was taken away.

So the rule is simple. Brain first. ChatGPT second.

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More from @DavidEpstein

Jan 20
Here are 7 things I’ve learned from 20 years studying human development 👇
1. People change far more than they expect.

At every stage of life, we think we’re finished becoming who we are.

A decade later, we’re someone new.
That’s the psychology finding known as the End of History Illusion.

We’re works in progress constantly claiming to be finished.
2. Experience can become a trap.

Solve a problem one way over and over and your brain wants to keep solving it that way.

That’s the Einstellung Effect.

Experience becomes a shortcut… until it becomes a cage
Read 7 tweets
Dec 16, 2025
I’ve spent 20 years studying how humans learn.

Here are 3 science-backed ways to learn faster, and remember longer. 👇
Lesson 1: Make it harder on purpose.

The best learning feels difficult.
For example, quiz yourself before you actually study the material; never mind that you don’t get it right, that primes your brain for subsequent learning.

Cognitive psychologists call it “desirable difficulties,” they slow you down but make knowledge stick.
Read 6 tweets

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