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 (arxiv.org/abs/2506.08872)

Kristin and Regina’s online courses:
• Demystifying Data: A Modern Approach to Statistical Understanding (online.stanford.edu/courses/som-xche0033-demys…)
• Clinical Trials: Design, Strategy, and Analysis (online.stanford.edu/courses/som-xche0030-clini…)
• Medical Statistics Certificate Program (online.stanford.edu/programs/medical-statistic…)
• Writing in the Sciences (coursera.org/learn/sciwrite)
• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program (online.stanford.edu/programs/epidemiology-and-…)
Programs that we teach in:
• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program (online.stanford.edu/programs/epidemiology-and-…)
Find us on:
Kristin - LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/kristin-sainani-642b5914) &Twitter/X (x.com/KristinSainani)
Regina -LinkedIn (linkedin.com/in/reginanuzzo) &ReginaNuzzo.com (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