How AI is Killing Your Potential
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So, I saw this hilarious meme of we need
a slur to describe people who use chat
GPT for everything. So, AI is having a
profound impact on our society. And the
tricky thing about it is that the impact
varies, right? So, if you're a CEO or
you guys may have heard about how this
company is like they're going to replace
30% of their workforce with AI. Students
have stopped writing essays because
thankfully we have AI now. And on the
flip side, there are a lot of people who
are terrified of AI, right? What if I'm
one of the 30% of people that AI is
going to get rid of in my job? So today,
we're going to talk about the impact of
AI on your brain. TLDDR, the more you
use AI, the more your brain will rust.
So let's start with a couple of really,
really important misconceptions.
So the first misconception that I want
to address is that AI gives us access
to a lot of information and AI knows
everything on the planet. I actually
think this is not the case at all. If
you are knowledgeable about a particular
subject and you talk to AI about that
subject, you will quickly discover that
AI doesn't know much at all. So this is
kind of weird, but I want you all to
think about this for a second. What we
saw with Google was very similar. So
when Google came out, everyone was like,
there's no point in learning anything
because all of the information on the
planet is is at our fingertips. I can
just do a Google search and it can give
me an answer. AI and Google has access
to very little information. It has
access to the surface level of
information. Right? So back in the day
when I did a Google search, if I did a
Google search, it would say 68,000 hits
and everyone on the planet would see the
first 10. So if you really think about
it, the total amount of information that
is available on the internet is very
very very high. But the percentage of
information that people have access to
through Google is actually really low.
The practical amount of information that
people can learn from Google is
incredibly small. Sure, if you spent
five years going through 68,000 results
and reading everything, maybe you could
learn a lot, but even then, most of
those results are just duplicated blog
posts with the same recycled ideas.
You'll kind of get what I'm saying?
Google doesn't teach you any kind of
deep learning. It just gives everyone
access to the most basic information.
And AI, I think, is is even worse at
this. So, what AI is really good at
doing is giving you a surface level
explanation presented in a very
digestible way, in a very sickopantic
way. If you guys didn't watch our video
about AI induced psychosis, highly
recommend you you check it out. But
basically, what AI is going to do is
give you an answer that makes you think
you know the answer instead of giving
you the real answer. And I did a really
simple test. I asked chat GPT what is
meditation and the answer that I got was
very evidence-based. It's beautiful. It
talks about the different kinds of
meditation. Talks about the different um
you know ways in which meditation
activates the brain. Right? So this may
be filtered in some way by the questions
that I usually ask uh my chat GPT. And
then I and then it also had this really
beautiful sentence of like okay I'm
going to remove all the fluff but I'm
going to stay true to the spiritual
roots of meditation which it did not do
at all right so we know that that chatpt
and AIS will hallucinate so I asked this
question about meditation this is the
answer that I got then I asked it a
second question about meditation I said
what is vajraana meditation and it
essentially gave me the same answer you
guys can see for yourself it talks about
gamma band improvement talks about
default mode network it talks about emot
emotional regulation in using imagery.
It gives you this answer of what
vajraana meditation is which is really
similar to the first answer and vajayana
meditation is not what chachi pit it's
completely wrong it's not about imagery
or emotional regulation at all vajriana
meditation literally if you stay true to
its original roots vajrayana meditation
is tantric Buddhism which is using
tantric techniques certain rituals
chanting mantras to access the cosmic
energy of extraplaner beings, deities
and these weird devas and bodhicattvas
that are floating around in the
non-material world. We are invoking them
and asking them to help us out in the
real world. But Chachi PT misses this by
a mile. If y'all are curious about that
stuff, this is kind of funny. So I did
this lecture uh called the weird stuff
where I explain how all these weird
kinds of meditation work. Turned out to
be a really [laughter]
people like the lecture a lot. So then
we did a part two, part three, part
four. Y'all can check it out over here
if you're curious about how Vajriana and
Thra actually work from a mechanistic
standpoint. You guys can check those
out. I try to make it as scientific as
possible. But anyway, back to chat GBT.
So here's my my thesis that the more
that we use AI, first of all, it doesn't
replace a whole lot of skills. All it
does is make the surface level answers
easily available to everyone on the
planet. The more that you use AI, it has
a couple of really interesting impacts
on us. So the first thing that AI usage
does is rust our brain. So everyone is
kind of talking about brain rot
nowadays, which is like when my mind
doesn't function properly. I think a
better term for it, especially when it
comes to AI, is brain rust. So if we
look at this study on critical thinking
that that was done at MIT, it basically
in this study they compared three groups
of people. People who are trying to
figure something out on their own,
people who are using Google and people
who are using uh AI and I think it was
chat GPT. And basically what they found
is that the people who use AI more their
critical thinking is being diminished.
And this is something that we see all
the time. There is a a huge alarm bell
being rung by professors at
universities. So, I used to be an
academic at Harvard Medical School and
so I have a lot of, you know, colleagues
that are still in academia. I left to
talk to y'all because I love y'all so
much, right? Screw that academic stuff.
And basically what we're seeing is that
students are getting lazier. They're
getting dumber. They're literally losing
their capacity to think. And this is
happening for people who are incredibly
young. So, here's an example from an
eighth grade teacher about what she's
seeing.
>> I teach eth grade history and um I have
110ish students. Two of them are reading
on grade level. 18 of them are at a
kindergarten level. 55 of those students
are between a second and fourth grade
level. But it's not just literacy. It's
not just literacy. And it's not just
like lack of content knowledge. It's not
just critical thinking skills. It's
basic thinking skills. My students can
decode almost nothing. They cannot apply
inference. They cannot process questions
that are longer than a sentence. They
cannot connect cause and effect. They
can't track multi-step ideas like in a
political cartoon. I had a kid
yesterday, four kids actually. This
happened in every class. We were doing
guided notes. Supposed to be a real easy
day was review. They wrote down Maryland
was founded as a safe haven for
Catholics. It was on the board. They
wrote it down. And before we moved on, I
call in a student and I ask, "Hey, where
were the Catholics one more time?" And
these students, what they do is they
look at me and then they look at their
notes and then they look at the board.
They look back at their notes
and some of them never answered me. They
never figured out the answer.
>> So I think this example illustrates what
we're seeing overall. And it's not just
this one study from MIT. Here are a
couple of other studies that show the
impact of using AI on academic
performance. And so this is really
interesting. I want y'all to pay
attention to what this paper actually
says. Okay. The findings reveal that AI
offers significant benefits including
personalized learning, improved academic
outcomes, and enhanced student
engagement. However, challenges such as
over reliance on AI, diminished critical
thinking skills, data privacy risks, and
academic dishonesty were also
identified. So, I want you all to pay
attention to what this really means.
What this means is that if you give a
student an AI, academic outcomes will
improve. If you give them an essay and
they use AI, they write a good essay.
The problem is that their critical
thinking skills, their ability to write
essays will actually be diminished. So
this is what I want you all to
understand about the human body and the
human brain. The human brain and the
human body do not wear out. They rust.
So if I take something like a phone, the
phone will decrease in quality the more
it is used. A physical object that is
non-organic and not alive, basically the
more you use it, the more it wears out.
An organic or biological object is the
opposite. If I sit on my ass all the all
the time, my body actually decays. The
more that I exercise, my cellular aging
can improve. My telomeres will get
longer. When we use our body, it gets
better. When we use our brain, it gets
better. So, what we're seeing from AI,
the more that people use AI, the more it
is a rusting their brains. So, how do we
grapple with this idea that AI is going
to replace a bunch of jobs? So, here's a
key thing to understand. First of all,
if you're a student and you're using AI
to do your work, this is precisely the
kind of job that will be replaced,
right? Right? So like literally if you
are using AI to write an essay, why on
earth would anyone hire you for anything
writing related? Because they can just
use an AI to do the work for you. So
this is where there's a really
interesting thing. The work that AI can
do is the thing that human beings will
be replaced with. So the more that you
are using AI to accomplish your work
product, the more vulnerable you are to
being replaced by AI. Now there's a
really hilarious kind of like window
right now where people have three, four
jobs, employers haven't caught on and
they're basically using AI to like have
four jobs at a time. So if y'all are
doing that right now, all the more power
to you. Not a big deal on my end. It'll
end eventually. I think the market
corrections will sort of fix that. So
then the question becomes, how can I
invest my skills in something that won't
be replaced by AI? And this is where I
think deep learning is incredibly
important. The kind of hard learning of
reading bunches of books, this is the
kind of thing that AI cannot replace.
Everyone thinks it has access to this
information, but AI gives the same damn
answers over and over and over again. It
learns what someone wants to hear and it
gives them that kind of information over
and over and over again. So AI may ask
you about venture. Hold on. I've got a
text about this. Right? So AI doesn't
have access to deep deep may have access
to it. But the problem is that it won't
give it to you. So this is the the book
that I was looking for. Vajra satva
meditation. Okay. walks step by step
through the stages of this tantric
ritual of purification with inspired com
commentary and color full color
illustrations like talks about all this
stuff here are all the vajra satvas this
is a book that teaches you about
vajriana meditation it's not about gamma
band whatever the [ __ ] that AI thinks it
is inner tantric yoga once again complex
text about the nature of tantra okay
here's one of my favorites sushut samita
this is just one of the volumes this is
a text on ayurveetic
Right. This is the kind of stuff that AI
doesn't know. These this book is pretty
good. Vanta treatis. This is a a good ex
this is a good example of a text that
like you can ask AI what vanta is and
it's it's basically like a glorified
Wikipedia entry except the difference is
that Wikipedia is actually correct and
then there's doctrine of karma. So you
can ask the AI hey what is the what is
karma? But like this book is different.
This book will give you satika actions
bring pleasure. Rajik and thamic actions
bring pain. Thamic actions produce
delusion which is undesirable and causes
suffering. That you are not going to
find on an AI. Here's what I'm seeing. A
lot of people are panicked. But what AI
has access to is not deep learning. It
has access to super surface level
learning where every what it gives the
same [ __ ] answers to everybody. And
then this is where people will say, "But
Dr. K, you're not using prompt
engineering properly." Which is a fair
criticism. So, let's talk about prompt
engineering for a second. So, back in
the day, there's a certain amount of I
don't know if you all have heard this
term. It's kind of gone out of vogue,
but Google foo, right? So, there is a
proficient way to use a search engine.
And in the same way, there is a
proficient way to use the AI, which I
totally agree with. There is a skill set
that allows you to extract more from an
AI than a standard person may be able
to. But what is the most important
variable to get good information out of
an AI? That is your base of knowledge.
Right? So if I I'm trained in
neuroscience, I'm trained in vajra satva
meditation. And so if I'm trained in
these methods of meditation, then I can
ask a very specific question. Give me a
plan for tantric upasana for t. Let's
see what it says. Look, it's talking
about visospatial imagery, symbolic
cognition, limbic modulation. So, here's
the thing, right? I just gave it this. I
was like, give me this tantra kupasan.
It's like, hey, this is a
psychologically safe noninitiated
that doesn't require ritual empowerment.
So, like here's the key thing. If you
want to do tantra kupasana for and so
what does that mean? That means doing
certain kinds of rituals to invoke a
particular deity. It requires
those things. This is like I'm going to
make you a sandwich without bread or
ingredients. This is basically what the
AI is giving me right now. So sure, you
can use prompt engineering to improve
the quality, but the key thing here is
that your ability to prompt engineer
depends on your expertise in general,
right? So you can try to hack it into
jailbreaking it and stuff like that.
There's that element as well. But here's
the key thing for people who do those
things. I'm not sure how they test the
veracity of what the AI tells them
because it's so damn sickopantic that
it's going to make you think if you tell
it, "Hey, I'm going to jailbreak you, so
give me a real response." It will learn
because it uses all of this coding. This
is really what AI is really good at.
It's good at learning what makes you
happy. So even if you think you
jailbroke the AI, chances are you didn't
really jailbreak it. it has just figured
out what makes you satisfied with you
thinking that you've jailbroken it. So
basically how do people navigate this? I
think this is a situation where in this
world of AI what we're seeing I I work
with some coders who are using AI very
effectively. So what we tend to see is
that AI is a tool that extends your
capabilities. So if you're using it for
surface level work that's totally fine.
If you want to use it to write an essay
that's on you. You're not going to learn
critical thinking skills and whatever
you are learning will be easily replaced
by AI. What actually works really well
is if y'all are passionate about a
subject. If you want to write something,
if you want to write a novel, if you
want to learn deeply about something,
this is the beautiful thing. This is
exactly where your market value is.
Anyone can ask chat PT for a meditation
plan. Why do people come to me? because
I have access to information that you
can't get from an AI. And that's where
the real value is. And as long as y'all
are doing the hard work, if you're
stretching your critical thinking
skills, if you're doing a lot of deep
learning, you will be the very value
that AI cannot replace. Hey y'all, hope
you enjoyed today's video. We talk about
a bunch of topics like this on the
channel, so be sure to subscribe for
more. If you're already subscribed, GG,
and we'll see you in chat.
>> [music]
[music]
Ask follow-up questions or revisit key timestamps.
The video discusses the profound impact of AI on society, noting how it affects different groups, such as CEOs replacing workforces and students no longer writing essays. It highlights a key misconception that AI knows everything, arguing instead that AI provides surface-level information, similar to early search engines like Google. The speaker uses the example of asking ChatGPT about meditation, where the AI provided a generalized and inaccurate explanation of Vajrayana meditation, missing its core tantric Buddhist roots. The central thesis is that excessive AI use leads to 'brain rust,' diminishing critical thinking skills, a phenomenon observed in students struggling with basic comprehension and inference. While AI can improve academic outcomes superficially, it erodes the user's ability to think critically and independently. The video contrasts this with organic growth, where using the brain and body leads to improvement, whereas AI use leads to decay. It suggests that skills involving deep learning, critical thinking, and specialized knowledge, which require effort and understanding beyond surface-level information, are less susceptible to replacement by AI. The speaker emphasizes that true value lies in human expertise and deep learning, which AI cannot replicate.
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