Your Brain on AI: Is ChatGPT making us mentally lazy?

ChatGPT is melting our brainpower, killing creativity, and making us soulless — or so the headlines imply. We dig into the study behind the claims, starting with quirky bar charts and mysterious sample sizes, then winding through hairball-like brain diagrams and tens of thousands of statistical tests. Our statistical sleuthing leaves us with questions, not just about the results, but about whether this was science’s version of a first date that looked better on paper.

Statistical topics

• ANOVA
• Bar graphs
• Data visualization 
• False Discovery Rate correction
• Multiple testing
• Preprints
• Statistical Sleuthing

Methodological morals

• "Treat your preprints like your blind dates. Show up showered and with teeth brushed."
• "Always check your N. Then check it again."
• "Never make a bar graph that just shows p-values. Ever."

Link to paper

Kristin and Regina’s online courses: 

• Demystifying Data: A Modern Approach to Statistical Understanding  
• Clinical Trials: Design, Strategy, and Analysis 
• Medical Statistics Certificate Program  
• Writing in the Sciences 
• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program

Programs that we teach in:

• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program 

Find us on:

Kristin -  LinkedIn & Twitter/X

Regina - LinkedIn & ReginaNuzzo.com

• (00:00) - Intro
  


• (03:46) - Media coverage of the study
  


• (08:35) - The experiment
  


• (12:09) - Sample size issues
  


• (13:11) - Bar chart sleuthing
  


• (19:15) - Blind date analogy
  


• (22:57) - Interview results
  


• (29:07) - Simple text analysis results
  


• (33:07) - Natural language processing results
  


• (40:03) - N-gram and ontology analysis results
  


• (44:58) - Teacher evaluation results
  


• (51:33) - Neuroimaging analysis
  


• (59:35) - Multiple testing and connectivity issues
  


• (01:05:13) - Brain adaptation results
  


• (01:08:50) - Wrap-up, rating, and methodological morals