[MUSIC]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to end our week with a few phone calls, and a guest on how AI and maybe other technological advancements are making you stupid. Do you ever get a sense that tech is affecting you in that way? Do you do anything to combat it, to take your brain back? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. We ask this because there was an article in The Wall Street Journal titled How I Realized AI Was Making Me Stupid-and What I Do Now by Sam Schechner, a Tech Reporter there who joins us now. Hi, Sam. Welcome to WNYC. Thank you for coming on about this.

Sam Schechner: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Tell us your story. What were you using AI for? What made you conclude, it was making you stupid?

Sam Schechner: [chuckles] Well, you can hear from my voice. I'm American, I'm from New York, but I live overseas. I live in Paris. I'm a correspondent here for the Journal. Even after all these years, I speak French fluently, but it's a pain sometimes, and so I started using AI to help me a little bit when I had some French writing to do. Things I could do myself, but preferred not to.

I remember the first real thing I tried was, I was having a problem with the rec center where my son plays basketball, that the coach kept missing games, and so I thought, "Hmm, can ChatGPT do this for me?" I just explained the problem in some detail in English into ChatGPT, and asked for it to write me an email, and the email was pretty good. I changed a few words, sent it off.

The next day, the rec center sent me this long apologetic email, and that they got a new coach. I was like, "Wow, this works." After that, I was hooked. After a few months, I think, I realized, am I getting a little rusty with my written French? [chuckles] Do I-- Am I searching for words? Why am I using this to suggest texts to send [chuckles] to-- For personal text to my neighbors? I thought, "Hmm, this is, probably-- It's seductive, but also dangerous."

Brian Lehrer: All right, listeners, who else has a story that? I'll say that, in addition to AI, Sam cites in his article, GPS. Anybody forgot how to get somewhere, because you just follow your GPS, or never learned how to get some places that maybe you even go routinely, because you just follow your GPS? Are you getting more stupid about directions? 212-433-WNYC, or how about smartphones, and some of the many things they can do, or digital calendars or Excel spreadsheets, even calculators? Pretty old tech, but maybe you used to be able to do the math in your head, as other technologies have reduced our brain's capacity. Not just AI. Who has a story? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. I think we have a GPS call coming in, actually. Is Maureen in Westchester ready? All right, we'll go to her in a second. Oh, here she is. Maureen, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Maureen: Hi, Brian. I do a lot of long distance driving on different highways, and through the years, I've become familiar with a lot of the roads. One of the things I've noticed mostly this year, especially, in the last few months, is that a lot of the alternatives that I used to be offered when there were hiccups in the road ahead, are not being offered anymore. I was wondering whether or not AI is influencing what the driving apps are providing to motorists, so that this way they actually can control the flow of traffic. I usually pick my own route, and I generally wind up getting to my destination just as quickly, if not better than what the app has suggested.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Maureen. Do you know the answer to her tech question, Sam? Is AI now informing GPS on which route to tell you to take traffic into account? Something is right? Because GPS does that, I believe.

Sam Schechner: I mean, the apps definitely are using some AI to help pick routes. Sometimes they actually do A/B testing to see-- They'll push some motorists down one route, and others down another route to see which one is better, so many people use these apps these days, that there actually is a sense that, if you send everybody down the same route, then it would suddenly be jammed, so you do actually--[crosstalk] They do actually have to spread it out.

Brian Lehrer: When we think GPS is working for us, we're sometimes just subjects in an experiment that it's doing on us?

Sam Schechner: It does seem to be the case. Yes. I mean, in some way, you could say the greater good is served by having everybody take a different route because, otherwise, we'd all be stuck in a traffic jam. On a personal level, I actually have started turning the GPS off sometimes, because there's research that shows that you actually don't pay as much attention to your surroundings when you're using GPS.

You zone out a little bit, and just let the machine do the guidance, and maybe you can have a conversation with your friend. If I'm on vacation, even if I don't really know the area too well, I study the map, and then I try to get-- Navigate by landmarks. I actually do remember what I'm driving through a little bit more.

Brian Lehrer: I will add that, apparently, mentioning GPS in this conversation was very triggering, because most of the calls [chuckles] that are now coming in are about GPS, one way or another, one detail or another. I want to ask you if you globalize this to brain function. That is, we've talked about some specifics. Maybe you don't remember how to go somewhere anymore, because GPS takes you there.

You told your story of your French skills deteriorating a little bit, getting rusty, because you were using AI so much to translate, but does it go beyond those specifics to reducing our brain's capacity in any more underlying way?

Sam Schechner: That's what researchers seem to be seeing. I mean, effectively, your brain gets better at things you do a lot, and it gets worse at things you don't do. We, since the dawn of time, humans have done something called cognitive offloading. It's like the original brain hack. It takes advantage of the fact that our brains are amazing at figuring things out, but we have limited working memory, so people started writing things down.

People started using tokens to represent value, things like-- So that you don't need to actually keep everything in your head all at once, but if you don't keep it in your head, you lose that ability over time, and so that's maybe okay. Maybe some listeners remember when they used to remember everybody's phone number, because they dialed them all the time, but now you just pick a name in your phone book, and tap on it, so you just lose that ability to remember phone numbers, or maybe you only remember your childhood phone number like me.

I guess, my concern and what led me to write this article is, writing feels like a different kind of skill. Maybe I'm biased, I'm a writer, but not remembering phone numbers doesn't bother me so much. If I lose the ability to articulate ideas, or you can use AI to summarize, too. If I lose the ability to read, that seems more essential.

Brian Lehrer: Dominique in St. Augustine, Florida, you're on WNYC. Hi, Dominique.

Dominique: Hi, I was just about to use ChatGPT to figure out how to keep dialing your number, because I couldn't get through, [chuckles] and then I got through. I was just going to say that I'm a tutor, and I work with high school students who often are unable to do things like multiply fractions using their hands, and their first instinct is to reach for the calculator.

This just happened last night, but then I also use ChatGPT to create worksheets to help these same students when they don't understand a very basic arithmetic problem, for example, so I think that there are benefits and detriments, obviously.

Brian Lehrer: That's really interesting, Dominique. Sam, she told a story there of getting past brain rot that was caused by a relatively old technology, piece of equipment, a calculator, by using even newer technology, ChatGPT, to design worksheets. That's a story.

Sam Schechner: Well, these tools definitely can help. It's all a matter of using them mindfully. I mean, it's like you're not going to get strong if you don't lift weights, so if you're using the, the AI, or whatever it is to avoid doing work with your brain, then your brain's going to get not as-- [chuckles] It's going to lose some of that ability to do that work. Yes, I mean, AI tutors that don't give you the answer, can actually be as good, or perhaps, better than a textbook.

One of the researchers I spoke with, actually, worked with high school math students, and she found-- She gave some of them an AI tutor, that just would-- It's, basically, ChatGPT, and so, if the students could ask it for the answer, and it would give them that, and they get-- They did really well in practice exams when they had access to that, but they did much worse than the kids with a textbook on the final exam.

Another group had a version of ChatGPT that was told not to give them the answer, that was told to give them hints, or try to help them work it out themselves, and those kids, they didn't do much better than the textbook, but they did the same. It wasn't detrimental, so there are ways to use these things mindfully. It just takes the self-control to do it.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take one more call. Luke in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Luke.

Luke: Hi, good morning, Brian. Thanks for taking my call. Huge fan, second time caller.

Brian Lehrer: Glad you're on again.

Luke: I agree with-- Yes, me too. I agree with everything you've been saying. I think, obviously, I'm just going to be parroting a bit, so skipping ahead to the end. Where do we draw the line, right? Where are we seeing that certain higher functions are getting replaced that maybe shouldn't be, right? I think, yes, I tried not using maps when it was coming out. It turns out, I'm just bad at direction, so that one's going to have to stay.

When it starts to replace language, cognition, the development of ideas, I think when it's a substitute for that, rather than a tool used for maybe the organization of thought, the right transfer of ideas, but when it's the origination, when it's the origin of communication, that's where I believe we really start to get into an overall decline in our ability to critically think.

Brian Lehrer: I'm going to leave it there, Luke, but to your point-- We just have 20 seconds left in the segment, Sam, but you use the term in your article, "digital dementia," so are there ways to avoid it? Is it that doing menial tasks, brain-oriented tasks, are good for your brain health, or-- Take just 10 seconds.

Sam Schechner: If it's adjacent to the thing that you think is important, then, yes. I mean, reading or writing menial emails, could help you write your novel if-- The key is to write.

Brian Lehrer: Sam Schechner from The Wall Street Journal on how AI was making him stupid. Thanks for sharing this with us. We really appreciate it.

Sam Schechner: Thanks so much for having me, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Have a great weekend, everybody. Enjoy your Saturday, May the 3rd, and your Sunday, May the 4th be with you. Stay tuned for Alison.

[music]

Copyright © 2025 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.

New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.