Is ChatGPT Dumbing Down your Kid? New MIT Study Says, “Yes.”
From Actual Intelligence with Steve Pearlman by Steve Pearlman, Ph.D.
August 21, 2025 · 11 min
About this episode
The episode discusses a new MIT study that suggests the use of artificial intelligence like ChatGPT may negatively impact children's ability to think for themselves.
Is ChatGPT dumbing down your kid? It is and here’s what you can do. A new MIT study reveals the powerful consequences of artificial intelligence on actual intelligence, and guess what? Simply (and terrifyingly) put, the use of artificial intelligence undermines your child’s actual intelligence. In short, when children don’t think for themselves, they don’t learn to think for themselves. That should surprise no one. I’ll get to the disturbing details of the study in a moment, but let me first explain why these outcomes were obvious and inevitable. In a nutshell, the brain functions like a muscle insofar that it becomes stronger when it is used and atrophies when it is not used. I could list a thousand additional factors that affect thinking, but that simple premise really is enough for this discussion. And when I say that the brain functions like a muscle, most people think I’m speaking overly metaphorically. I’m not. While the brain, of course, isn’t actual muscle tissue, its functioning is remarkably similar. Much in the way that exercising muscles builds more muscles, exercising the brain builds the brain—literally. Every single time we engage in a thinking act, the brain…
People in this episode
Host: Steve Pearlman
Topics covered
- artificial intelligence
- child development
- education
- cognitive science
- brain function
Keywords
- ChatGPT
- MIT study
- artificial intelligence
- child intelligence
- brain function
- cognitive development
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: MIT
Products: ChatGPT
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