ChatGPT, essays, and who does the learning

The researchers behind “Your Brain on ChatGPT”, first released on 10 June 2025, found that participants who used ChatGPT to write essays had more difficulty quoting their essays from memory than those who wrote without tools. They also reported less ownership of the text. The authors warned about possible cognitive costs and long-term effects on learning.

I think this is a stupid way to judge whether AI is bad. Of course I’ll remember less of an essay I didn’t write. Whether ChatGPT writes it, I hire someone on Fiverr, or I ask my sister, I’m skipping the work. The finding makes sense. But AI use is a spectrum: having it write every argument and sentence is one end; writing everything myself is the other. Finding relevant papers or alternative examples sits in between. Poor recall of text I didn’t write doesn’t make every use of AI bad. If I need to know what I’m submitting, I should do the thinking and writing myself.