BEWARE of ChatGPT: Like Every Technology, Using It Has Consequences

If awareness can improve decisions, then here’s helpful information: MIT researchers studied 54 ChatGPT users over four months, and found that using an A.I. assistant to “write” an essay can cause brain atrophy: Like unused muscles, ChatGPT users’ brains forget how to work. ChatGPT makes you 60% faster at completing tasks, but it reduces the "germane cognitive load" needed for actual learning by 32%. Minutes after “writing” an essay with ChatGPT, 83.3% of users could not quote from the essay.

In other words, by using A.I., you trade short-term speed for long-term brain function.

Over half of surveyed college students have used A.I. tools to complete assignments of exams.

A.I.’s ECOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES

Using ChatGPT also has ecological consequences, since manufacturing devices and infrastructure involves energy-guzzling, toxic waste emitting stuff like electricity, extractions, smelting, chemicals and intercontinental shipping. Accessing an A.I. requires a (manufactured) computer, access networks—and data storage centers.

A.I. guzzles water. What makes A.I. so thirsty? Professor Shaolei Ren, at UC/Riverside’s Electrical & Computer Engineering Dept., calculated the water that data centers use to cool servers. (He did not consider the water used to manufacture computers). He found that training ChatGPT-3 in Microsoft's high-end data centers can directly evaporate 700,000 liters (185,000 gallons) of water. Then, for every 10-50 queries, GPT-3 uses roughly 16 ounces of water. With billions of queries, this adds up.

See Asianometry’s excellent report about The Big Data Center Water Problem.

Andrew Nikiforuk explains that while it clouds human wisdom, artificial intelligence devours vast energy. The Wall Street Journal reports that A.I.’s data centers are pushing the power grid to what could become a breaking point.

What happens when people live near a data storage center? Read how Elon Musk’s massive xAI data center impacts people in Memphis, Tennessee. For starters, it burns enough gas to power a small city, with no permits and no pollution controls. In Oregon, one of the state’s smallest utilities has become one of its biggest polluters—because of Amazon data centers.

In The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud, Steven Gonzalez Monserrate reports that “the Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry.”

THE BOTTOM LINES

Protect your brain. Protect your children’s brains. Protect our water and ecosystems.

If you can opt out of A.I., opt out. Do not use it.

As much as possible, keep human.

If you’ve already acclimated to ChatGPT or some other A.I.—and notice a change in your cognitive abilities—may you find remedies that restore brain power—and share your discoveries.

PARENTS AND SCHOOLS THAT LIMIT TECH USE

While addictive use of social media, mobile phones or video games is now associated with youths’ suicidal behaviors, suicidal ideation and worse mental health, some call “dumb” landline telephones “parenting genius:” they provide connection…without smartphones’ downsides.

In The Smartphones Haven’t Defeated Us. Yet, Jonathan Haidt and colleagues report that ten states have enacted laws that make their schools phone-free. 21 states have enacted less strict laws for phone use in schools. 14 more states and DC are considering restrictive laws.

In Brazil, every school prohibits phones. Australia has raised the age for opening social media accounts to 16; other countries are quite likely to follow suit. French president Emmanuel Macron recently announced his intention to enact a minimum age of 15 for social media use in France. The European Union might enact a similar restriction first.

While tech companies fill children’s classrooms and lives with more new and untested technologies (A.I. “friends,” tutors and other virtual realities), parents and legislators can act to restore childhood.

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