A few weeks ago I found myself reading about semiconductor technology at midnight. Not because it was assigned. Not because it was relevant to anything I was studying. Just because I asked AI to explain it like I was twelve and suddenly it made sense. That curiosity did not come from AI making me smarter. It came from AI removing the barrier that would have stopped me from ever starting.
But here is the honest part. The same week I used AI to summarize a reading I could have done myself. Not because I was being careless. Because that time went directly into building TechFuel instead. And I do not regret that trade.
That tension is exactly what researchers are now trying to understand.
The Study Everyone Is Citing
In June 2025 MIT Media Lab published a study that went viral almost immediately. Researchers split 54 participants into three groups. One group wrote essays using ChatGPT. One used Google Search. One used nothing at all. They monitored brain activity throughout using EEG headsets.
The results were striking. ChatGPT users showed up to 55% lower cognitive engagement than the group that wrote unaided. Over time they became more reliant on the tool, often defaulting to copy and paste entirely. The researchers called this accumulation of cognitive debt.
The study is still awaiting peer review and the lead researcher herself has asked people not to overstate the findings. But the pattern it identified is hard to ignore.
But Here Is What The Headlines Missed
The study looked specifically at essay writing. One task. One context. The researchers themselves noted that using AI after deeply engaging with material first may actually support critical thinking rather than replace it.
The problem is not AI. The problem is the sequence. If you let AI do the thinking before you have done any thinking yourself, you lose the cognitive work that actually builds understanding. If you use AI to go further after you have already engaged with something, the dynamic changes entirely.
The difference between those two approaches is everything.
What This Means For You Right Now
The students who will struggle are not the ones using AI. They are the ones using AI as a replacement for thinking rather than a tool for thinking better.
Three questions worth asking yourself this week.
Are you using AI to skip the thinking or to go deeper into it?
When AI is not available are you still able to solve the problem in front of you?
Are you learning anything new or just producing output faster?
If the answer to any of those makes you uncomfortable that is useful information.
The Real Answer
AI is not making you dumber. It is shifting where your energy goes.
When AI handles the tasks that matter less to you that time does not disappear. It moves toward the things that actually drive you. For me that meant more time building TechFuel instead of summarising readings I would have forgotten anyway. That is a conscious trade and one I stand behind.
The students who are intentional about what they delegate to AI and what they protect for themselves will graduate with both the credential and the edge. The question is not whether AI is making you dumber. The question is whether you are using the time it frees up for something that actually matters to you.
Where to Start
Pick one topic completely outside your field this week. Ask Claude or ChatGPT to explain it simply. Follow your curiosity for twenty minutes. Notice what happens to your thinking. That is the version of AI use the research says builds you up rather than hollows you out.
See you next Tuesday.
Kaishu Kagami
Founder, TechFuel