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Tech Productivity

Issue #337  (Your Brain on ChatGPT) 07/28/25


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We're already starting to see evidence that AI tool can hinder brain activity and result in negative effects on long-term recall and learning. One such study was recently published on MIT Media Lab.

The study is titled Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task. They divided participants into three groups:
  1. LLM
  2. Search Engine
  3. Brain-only (no tools)
With varying tasks assigned to each, then two of the groups were reassigned (LLM to Brain-only and Brain-only to LLM).
 
Your Brain on AI

There are more details in the abstract and the full PDF, but the study's abstract has a sobering conclusion:
 
"These results raise concerns about the long-term educational implications of LLM reliance and underscore the need for deeper inquiry into AI's role in learning."

We certainly can't escape the use of AI at this stage, but maybe knowing the effects will help us to use our cognitive abilities more productively in certain circumstances (e.g. when we want to learn and retain).

Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!

 

 

Tools & Apps

Klarbook — Still in early development, this is an open source alternative to QuickBooks that offers a comprehensive accounting and financial management solution.

Skywork — An AI-powered productivity workspace that turns simple input into multimodal content via docs, slides, sheets, and more, for analysts, educators, etc.

Refind — Brain food, delivered daily. Every day the team at Refind analyzes thousands of articles and sends you only the best, tailored to your interests. Loved by 540,000+ curious minds.    sponsor  

Zero — An open source privacy-friendly, AI-native email client that can be self-hosted and can integrate external services like Gmail and other email providers.

Whatting — A planner app for iPad that allows you to customize and supercharge your diary/journal with flexible widgets, including notes, to-dos, timers, and more.

Entropy — A Chrome extension that blurs private information in 100+ tools (AWS, GitHub, Stripe, Airtable, etc.) so you can safely share your screen using Google Meet, Zoom, etc.

Planoramic — A drag-and-drop project management tool for planning processes, events, and more with real-time collaboration, notifications, an infinitely scrollable horizontal calendar, and more.

Suggestions?

Have a suggestion for a productivity-related tool, article, or other resource? Send me a direct message via X or chat via Bluesky and I’ll consider including it in a future issue.

Stay productive!

Louis
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