ChatGPT and other AI tools are imposing fresh challenges on our cognitive processes, altering our thought patterns and impeding our learning abilities.

ChatGPT enables users to input prompts and obtain human-like images, text or videos generated by artificial intelligence (AI).

The use of AI and digitalization are both altering the networking of the billions of nerve cells in our brains, which are linked to handle different tasks, scientists say.

We may be outsourcing our thinking to machines, say psychologists who fear that we might not necessarily use AI competently and meaningfully.

"We must avoid outsourcing the active learning process that is part of education to ChatGPT, which would mean our brains are not challenged," says psychologist and brain researcher Peter Gerjets.

"What counts is what is happening within our minds and what comes out as a real learning achievement," says Gerjets, a scientist at the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien in the German city of Tübingen.

Cognitive off-loading

Letting a machine do the work of remembering or thinking is known as cognitive offloading, and scientists have long debated whether this is a good idea (to free up brain space) or a bad idea (in removing the brain's ability to handle certain tasks).

The question first arose with the availability of GPS navigation systems – but in fact, anyone using a digital calendar of reminders is also letting AI do the heavy lifting.

"The fact is that if a certain ability is no longer needed, the areas of the brain that implement that particular skill are weakened," says Gerjets, who says using calculators to help you out doing sums is also a way of offloading the thinking process.

"If I use my calculator for a sum, I can get a result much faster but my ability to divide suffers and this affects the corresponding areas of my brain." Not such a big deal, perhaps, he says. "What is buried in the brain can be revitalized, so it is not lost."

Something else is happening in our brains too, he says. Certain areas "swell" when faced with particularly high demands. "They become larger and denser." They shrink when the demands decrease, he notes. If you are multitasking constantly, that exhausts your brain, as most of us well know.

Strain the brain

Even using technical devices such as tablets for digital learning means we have to pay additional attention and use more energy because alongside processing the content, operating the technology also requires concentration.

When we scroll on several sites and follow lots of links, it can be hard not to lose track of the content and keep an overview in mind.

That puts far more strain on your prefrontal cortex, the frontal lobe in your brain, which is like a command center or cockpit, where all information comes together and tasks are distributed.

With generative AI tools like ChatGPT, we become passive observers when a computer creates answers for us, meaning our learning is not sustainable, says neurobiologist Martin Korte of Braunschweig Technical University.

For our brains, activity is important, as is being able to reflect on content and information, creating knowledge that we store. That "changes the circuits in our brains, meaning their structure," Korte says.

It can help if you understand the strengths and weaknesses of AI and make sure that teachers and students alike become smarter to the same extent that machines become "smarter," Korte says.

Using AI is a further demands on our brains

"Evaluating and selecting new information, comparing sources – all of this is work for the frontal lobe of our brain. This ability to evaluate is becoming increasingly important," Gerjets says.

When you ask ChatGPT a question and it answers you, it is important to remember that even though the AI tool implies it has found the right answer, that may not in fact be the case.

It provides answers in a manner that is "smooth linguistically and fully formulated, in a tone of conviction, but without citing sources. Many people find that credible. I find that very questionable," Gerjets says.

But AI tools like ChatGPT present huge opportunities for the education sector and could have many advantages for pupils, for example when generating exercise material or testing what they have learned, he says.

"However, it is a learning companion and dialogue partner that you have to treat with caution, as they don't know everything and sometimes provide you with complete nonsense."

Looking further ahead, we do not know yet how the structure of our brains will change in the long term using AI, he says.

What about higher education?

AI is also widespread in higher education and worryingly, students are not always clear on what parts of their writing are machine-generated.

When it came to multiple choice questions, in almost half of the cases, students were unable to correctly identify whether they were created by humans or AI, in a test set up by Germany's Institute for Medical Teaching. They also rated the difficulty of the tasks as practically identical, the University Hospital Bonn says.

When it comes to answering questions, ChatGPT and other similar tools were already able to respond to medical state tests. The tools were already in use for self-testing the knowledge acquired.

Now it seems that machines can also set the exam questions for medical students too. What all this means for working doctors later on down the line remains unclear.