Today’s Big Story

Our Brains on AI

Headlines say artificial intelligence makes us stupider and lazier. But the research is more complex than that.

What do you ask ChatGPT? And how often do you use it or similar large language model chat bots? I’m starting to rely on them more and more. And I’m not alone. But now people are wondering and worried if such artificial intelligence is harming critical thinking abilities? And furthering concern is a new study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab, which has returned some troubling results.

The study divided 54 subjects—18 to 39 year-olds from the Boston area—into three groups, and asked them to write several SAT essays using OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers’ brain activity across 32 regions, and found that of the three groups, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” Over the course of several months, ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy-and-pasting by the end of the study.

Though researchers caution that this study and others across the field have not drawn hard conclusions on whether AI is reshaping our brains in pernicious ways, the MIT work and other small studies published this year offer unsettling suggestions. One U.K. survey study of more than 600 people published in January found “significant negative correlation between the frequent use of AI tools and critical thinking abilities,” as younger users in particular often relied on the programs as substitutes, not supplements, for routine tasks.

But as the Washington Post points out, fear of technology rewiring our brains is nothing new. Socrates warned writing would make humans forgetful. In the mid-1970s, teachers fretted that cheap calculators might strip students of their abilities to do simple math. More recently, the rise of search engines spurred fears of “digital amnesia.”

Similarly, Fast Company urges us to calm down. “Yes, consistently opting for the most expedient way to accomplish work rather than the one that produces the best results is no way to live. Sure, being overly reliant on ChatGPT—or any form of generative AI—has its hazards.” But they’re confident it’s possible to embrace AI without your reasoning skills atrophying. No single task can represent all the ways people engage with AI, and the one the MIT researchers chose—essay writing—is particularly fraught. The best essays reflect the unique insight of a particular person: When students take the actual SAT for real, they aren’t even allowed to bring a highlighter, let alone a bot.

GOP Fights It Out on Megabill

Splits in the Senate on Medicaid and deficits strain effort to quickly pass legislation

The Senate opened debate on Sunday on the embattled Republican tax cuts and domestic policy bill (aka Trump’s “big, beautiful bill”), as Republican leaders struggled to build enough support in their own ranks to push it through before a Fourth of July deadline set by the president.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the 940-page legislation is driving a wedge between the GOP’s two wings, just as the party is racing to pass the measure this week. Centrists have raised concerns about cutting benefit programs and straining state budgets, while fiscal conservatives are pushing for even more cuts to rein in federal budget deficits. “Proponents maintain that the opportunity to pass President Trump’s core agenda items—and pressure from Trump on holdouts—would propel the package over the finish line in the Senate, where the GOP has a 53-47 majority.“

The bitter floor fight began in earnest after Senate clerks devoted almost 16 consecutive hours to reading aloud the 940-page bill. Democrats insisted on the reading as a protest and to delay the final showdown—stalling a vote on passage to later today at the earliest. Still, leaders in the GOP were optimistic about getting the bill done and dusted soon. The sprawling tax and immigration package would extend tax cuts passed in 2017, enact campaign promises such as no tax on tips, and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the White House’s mass deportation drive and national defense priorities.

Adobe’s New Camera App

The brand’s new Project Indigo was made by former Pixel camera engineers

Alongside new Photoshop and Lightroom updates, Adobe recently unveiled Project Indigo, a new computational photography camera app. As spotted by DPReview, Adobe quietly introduced Project Indigo with a blog post on its dedicated research website. The app captures a burst of photos and “combines them together to produce a high-quality photo with lower noise and higher dynamic range”.

In their article, Adobe’s Marc Levoy (Adobe Fellow) and Florian Kainz (Senior Scientist) explain how, despite giant leaps forward in smartphone image sensor and optical technologies, many hardcore photographers still lament phone photos. They claim that these images cannot compete with the much larger sensors and lenses in dedicated cameras, embody a “smartphone look” that is overly processed, and generally don’t provide dedicated photographers with all the manual controls they desire.

According to The Verge, it’s free and available for the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max, iPhone 13 Pro and Pro Max, and all iPhone 14 models and above. (Though Adobe recommends using an iPhone 15 Pro or newer.) It also doesn’t require logging into an Adobe account to use.

You’re Always Taking Care of Others. What If You Let Someone Show Up for You Too?

Keep your crew close.