Ol Olsoc - Slashdot User

Submission + - ChatGPT Eroding Your Memory (eweek.com) 1

Submitted by Ol Olsoc on Wednesday June 25, 2025 @07:28AM

Ol Olsoc writes: I've had some concerns about using AI generations since finding out that the results do not get committed to memory. Turns out that is a real thing, and to me rather concerning.

A groundbreaking MIT study just sprinkled some seriously concerning findings about what ChatGPT is doing to our brains (at least, when we write essays)

https://www.eweek.com/news/cha...

Here’s what happened:

Researchers strapped EEG headsets on 54 people and had them write essays over four months.

One group used ChatGPT, another used Google search, and a third went old-school with just their brains. ChatGPT users showed dramatically weaker brain connectivity and when they later tried to write without AI, their brains looked more like novices than practiced writers.

So AI is like performance enhancing drugs, but instead of steroids that make your muscles all big, it shrinks them down; you can still perform, but only if you’re using.

The most concerning part was this: 83% of ChatGPT users couldn’t quote a single sentence from essays they’d written just minutes earlier. Now compare that to the brain-only group, where only 11% had trouble quoting their own work.

Submission + - Former NRC chair says nuclear power is not a climate solution

Submitted by Ol Olsoc on Friday January 28, 2022 @02:51PM

Ol Olsoc writes: Former NRC Chair Gregory Jaczko in an interview with the Verge notes: "I think there’s been a lot of misinformation about the role that nuclear power can play in any climate strategy. A lot of attention has been put on nuclear as somehow the technology that’s going to solve a lot of problems when it comes to dealing with climate change. I just think that’s not true. And it’s taking the debate and discussion away from the areas that can have a role and that do need focus and attention." as well as : "I think it’s money that’s not well spent. Nuclear has shown time and time again that it cannot deliver on promises about deployment and costs. And that’s really the most important factor when it comes to climate."

He then goes on to note that at the same time as proponents claim it is the cure for AGW, that the situation with late starts, exceptional cost over runs such as the Georgia plant that sits at 30 billion dollars now, more than twice the cost initially estimated. As well, two plants have been cancelled in the USA, along with federal indictments for fraud among the heads of the company performing the reactor development in those cancelled plants. Other former leads of similar agencies in Germany, France, and the UK apparently agree, having been co authors of the statement. https://www.theverge.com/2022/...

Submission + - Mozilla stops accepting cryptocurrency Wikipedia may be next (techrepublic.com)

Submitted by Ol Olsoc on Monday January 17, 2022 @11:30AM

Ol Olsoc writes: When the Mozilla Foundation took to Twitter on New Year's Eve to announce it was going to begin accepting cryptocurrency donations, it likely didn't think about potential blowback from one of its founders, but that's what it got. In response, Mozilla has said it's pausing cryptocurrency donations. Wikipedia is now discussing whether it should stop accepting Cryptocurrency as well.

Mozilla co-founder Jamie Zawinski a co-founder of Mozilla has some strong feelings about the matter, noting "Anyone involved in cryptocurrencies in any way is either a grifter or a mark," Zawinski told me. "It is 100% a con. There is no legitimacy," he said.

I cannot disagree with him.

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