Go To The Fucking Gym

AI is making you stupid. MIT just proved it.

Or so the teaser line on myriad social media posts, still circulating months after MIT published Your Brain On ChatGPT, would have us believe.

Did you read the upstream 206-page PDF? I did.

Well, sort of. I read it in the way I imagine a disciplined yet busy person in 2025 would.

I passed it to ChatGPT, prompting it to execute four discrete phases: summarization of claims, analysis of claims, summarization of zeitgeist (now in Deep Research mode — the first phase allowing such outside retrieval), and finally conversation as I cross-referenced the original PDF and citations.

Page 23 describes MIT splitting participants into three groups with the following tool restrictions on their essay writing task: ChatGPT-4o only, search engine only, and no tools at all.

The research is interesting, yet these groups each represent an anti-pattern of AI engagement in 2025.

I have myself been sculpting a process that honors the notion that “writing is thinking” while striving to maintain my unique voice —

1. I spend an extended period collecting and collating memory triggers by topic.
2. I task ChatGPT to survey, summarize, and cite relevant sources.
3. I push all that aside, set my brain before a blank canvas, and see what spills out.
4. I then give it to ChatGPT to pressure test narrowly on grammar, clarity, and factuality.
5. I read through its feedback, argue with it, and then selectively make changes by typing.
6. I then narrate it, make more changes, and loop back to (4).

Note: 4-6 may happen by section for longer pieces.

I submit this as an exemplar of how to leverage AI not just to amplify and polish your thinking in the short-run but also strengthen your brain in the long-run.

AI poses serious risks of cerebral atrophy — just consider your relationship with Google Maps — but employed shrewdly it may provide enormous leverage and invaluable partnership in the realms of sifting, backstopping, ideation, and coaching.

There are only two truly stupid ways to engage with AI in 2025 — with blind trust or not at all.

Today’s piece brought to you by… the above-described process.

Now, as Swolenormous would counsel us as he photobombs other brain candy memes: Go To The Fucking Gym. And don’t forget — your brain needs it, too, now more than ever.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Joe Nunnink (@nunnigram)