MIT (a Jeff Epstein Fave) Proves the Obvious: Smart Software Makes Some People Stupid
June 23, 2025
An opinion essay written by a dinobaby who did not rely on smart software .
People look at mobile phones while speeding down the highway. People smoke cigarettes and drink Kentucky bourbon. People climb rock walls without safety gear. Now I learn that people who rely on smart software screw up their brains. (Remember. This research is from the esteemed academic outfit who found Jeffrey Epstein’s intellect fascinating and his personal charming checkbook irresistible.) (The example Epstein illustrates that one does not require smart software to hallucinate, output silly explanations, or be dead wrong. You may not agree, but that is okay with me.)
The write up “Your Brain on ChatGPT” appeared in an online post by the MIT Media Greater Than 40. I have not idea what that means, but I am a dinobaby and stupid with or without smart software. The write up reports:
We discovered a consistent homogeneity across the Named Entities Recognition (NERs), n-grams, ontology of topics within each group. EEG analysis presented robust evidence that LLM, Search Engine and Brain-only groups had significantly different neural connectivity patterns, reflecting divergent cognitive strategies. Brain connectivity systematically scaled down with the amount of external support: the Brain only group exhibited the strongest, widest?ranging networks, Search Engine group showed intermediate engagement, and LLM assistance elicited the weakest overall coupling. In session 4, LLM-to-Brain participants showed weaker neural connectivity and under-engagement of alpha and beta networks; and the Brain-to-LLM participants demonstrated higher memory recall, and re-engagement of widespread occipito-parietal and prefrontal nodes, likely supporting the visual processing, similar to the one frequently perceived in the Search Engine group. The reported ownership of LLM group’s essays in the interviews was low. The Search Engine group had strong ownership, but lesser than the Brain-only group. The LLM group also fell behind in their ability to quote from the essays they wrote just minutes prior.
Got that.
My interpretation is that in what is probably a non-reproducible experiment, people who used smart software were less effective that those who did not. Compressing the admirable paragraph quoted above, my take is that LLM use makes you stupid.
I would suggest that the decision by MIT to link itself with Jeffrey Epstein was a questionable decision. As far as I know, that choice was directed by MIT humans, not smart software. The questions I have are:
- How would access to smart software changed the decision of MIT to hook up with an individual with an interesting background?
- Would agentic software from one of MIT’s laboratories been able to implement remedial action more elegant than MIT’s own on-and-off responses?
- Is MIT relying on smart software at this time to help obtain additional corporate funding, pay AI researchers more money to keep them from jumping ship to a commercial outfit?
MIT: Outstanding work with or without smart software.
Stephen E Arnold, June 23, 2025
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