AI Magazine October 2025 | Page 149

AI ETHICS AND REGULATION essay-writing tasks. The study divided participants into three cohorts: one using ChatGPT, another using Google’ s search engine and a third working without technological assistance.
The results were stark. Participants using ChatGPT demonstrated the lowest levels of brain engagement across all neural, linguistic and behavioural measurements, and exhibited reduced executive control and attentional engagement compared to the others.
“ What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6-8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides,‘ let’ s do
GPT kindergarten’,” says Nataliya Kosmyna, the study’ s Lead Author and a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab.“ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental. Developing brains are at the highest risk.”
The research also found that ChatGPT users produced essays with similar content and structure: a finding that could translate to a homogenisation of thought and reduced innovation in corporate environments. Perhaps more concerning for enterprise use cases was the speed at which dependency formed. By their third assignment, many participants simply delegated the task to ChatGPT, performing minimal edits.
aimagazine. com 149