The boiling frog effect

AI use causing ‘boiling frog’ effect on human brain, study warns

Turning to AI to complete tasks may be eroding people's ability to make an effort to think for themselves and makes them more likely to give up, new research has found.

This could leave us in a "boiling frog" scenario, in which the capabilities of our brains are progressively compromised as we lean on AI more heavily, the study warns.

An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford, MIT, UCLA and Carnegie Mellon said their research provides evidence for two alarming consequences of using AI to help complete tasks: "Reduced persistence and impairment of unassisted performance.”


It is worth suggesting an alternative view here - that AI and the wider internet may possibly reduce the boiling frog effect for those paying attention. 

Taking it further - it is almost possible to divide people politically into those who notice the boiling frog effect affecting their lives and those who don't. Governments and politicians have always known about it. As the AI explanation says -

Explanation of the Concept

The boiling frog effect is based on an anecdote in which a frog is placed in a pot of water that is slowly heated. The story suggests that if the temperature increases gradually, the frog does not perceive the danger and is eventually boiled alive. While this story is not literally accurate in biology, it serves as a powerful metaphor for human perception and behavior. The key idea is that gradual changes are often overlooked, whereas sudden changes would trigger an immediate response.