6 ms·

I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language

I wouldn't call it "accumulation of cognitive debt"; just call it cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills. And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Anybody remember the couple studies on the use of google maps for navigation? One was "Habitual use of GPS negatively impacts spatial memory during self-guided navigation"; another reported a reduction in gray matter among maps users. Moreover, anyone who has developed expertise in a science field knows that coming to understand something requires pondering it, exploring how each idea relates to other things, etc. You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. You have to stop and think. IMO it is the act of thinking which establishes the objects in our mind such that they can be useful to our thinking later on.

eru 1y ago
> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Sounds very plausible, though how does that square with the common experience that certain skills, famously 'riding a bike', never go away once learned?
- pempem 1y ago
  Such a good question - I hope someone answers with more than an anecdote (which is all I can provide) - I've found the skills that don't leave you like riding a bike, swimming, cooking are all physical skills. Tangible. The skills that leave: arguments, analysis, language, creativity often seem abstract and primarily if not exclusively sourced in our minds
  - hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
    Google "procedural memory". Procedural memory is more resistant to forgetting than other types of memory.
    - eru 1y ago
      I guess speaking a language employs some mixture of procedural and other types of memory?
- wahern 1y ago
  Closer to the truth is that the brain never completely forgets something, in the sense that there are always vestiges left over, even after the ability to recall or instantly draw upon it is long gone. Studies show, for example, that after one has "forgotten" a language, they're quicker to pick up it again later on compared to someone without that prior experience; how quickly being time dependent, but more quickly nonetheless. OTOH, IME the quickest way to truly forget something is to overwrite it. Photographs being a notorious example, where looking at photographs can overwrite your own personal episodic memory of an event. I don't know how much research exists exploring this phenomenon, though, but AFAIU there are studies at least showing that the mere act of recalling can reshape memories. So, ironically, perhaps the best way not to forget is to not remember. Left unstated in the above is that we can categorize different types of memory--episodic, semantic, implicit, etc--based on how they seem to operate. Generalizations (like the above ;) can be misleading.
- rusk 1y ago
  Riding a bike is a skill rather than what we would call a “memory” per se. It’s a skill that develops a new neural pathway throughout your extended nervous system bringing together the lesser senses of proprioception and balance. Once you bring these things together you then go on to use them for other things. You “know” (grok), rather than “understand” how a bike stays upright on a very deep physical level.
  - eru 1y ago
    Sure. But speaking a language is also (at least partially) a skill, ain't it?
    - rusk 1y ago
      It is. It’s also something you don’t forget except in extreme cases like dementia. Skills are different from facts but we use the word memory interchangeably for each. It’s this nuance of language that causes a category error in your reasoning ain’t it.
- gwd 1y ago
  I think a better way to say it is that the brain doesn't commit to long term memory things that it doesn't need. I remember hearing about some research they'd done on "binge watching" -- basically, if you have two groups: 1. One group watches the entire series over the course of a week 2. A second group watches a series one episode per week Then some time later (maybe 6 months), ask them questions about the show, and the people in group 2 will remember significantly more. Anecdotally, I've found the same thing with Scottish Country Dancing. In SCD, you typically walk through a dance that has 16 or so "figures", then for the next 10 minutes you need to remember the figures over and over again from different perspectives (as 1st couple, 2nd couple, 3rd couple etc). Fairly quickly, my brain realized that it only needed to remember the figures for 10 minutes; and even the next morning if you'd asked me what the figures were for a dance the night before I couldn't have told you. I can totally believe it's the same thing with writing with an LLM (or having an assistant write a speech / report for you) -- if you're just skimming over things to make sure it looks right, your brain quickly figures out that it doesn't need to retain this information. Contrast this to riding a bike, where you almost certainly used the skill repeatedly over the course of at least a year.
- KineticLensman 1y ago
  > Sounds very plausible, though how does that square with the common experience that certain skills, famously 'riding a bike', never go away once learned? I worked with some researchers who specifically examined this when developing training content for soldiers. They found that 'muscle memory' skills such as riding a bike could persist for a very long time. At the other end of the spectrum were tasks that involved performing lots of technical steps in a particular order, but where the tasks themselves were only performed infrequently. The classic example was fault finding and diagnosis on military equipment. The researchers were in effect quantifying the 'forgetting curve' for specific tasks. For some key tasks, you could overtrain to improve the competence retention, but it was often easier to accept that training would wear off very quickly and give people a checklist instead.
  - eru 1y ago
    Very interesting! Thanks for bringing this up.
- devmor 1y ago
  I am not an expert in the subject but I believe that motor neurons retain memory, even those not located inside the brain. They may be subject to different constraints than other neurons.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
vishnugupta 1y ago
> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. You have to stop and think. And most importantly you have to write. A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. Enables us to have a structured dialogue with ourselves. Explore different paths. Thinking & pondering can only do so much and will reach the limits soon. Writing, on the other hand enables one to explore thoughts nearly endlessly. Given that thinking is so intimately associated with writing (could be prose, drawing, equations, graphs/charts, whatever) and that LLMs are doing more and more of writing it'll be interesting to see the effect of LLMs on our cognitive skills.
- Davidzheng 1y ago
  I disagree with this take. I'd say often when exploring new math problems, often it's possible explore the possible solutions paths at lower technical levels first in your mind before anything down--when actually going into details of an approach. I don't think not writing is that limiting if all of your approaches already fail before going into details, which is often the case in early stages of math research.
  - hamdouni 1y ago
    I can also explore by writing. Writing drafts can help structure my thinking.
    - hyper57 1y ago
      "The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement." ~ Billy Collins
- supriyo-biswas 1y ago
  > And most importantly you have to write. A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. There's a lot of talk about AI assisted coding these days, but I've found similar issues where I'm unable to form a mental model of the program when I rely too much on them (amongst other issues where the model will make unnecessary changes, etc.). This is one of the reasons why I limit their use to "boring" tasks like refactoring or clarifying concepts that I'm unsure about. > it'll be interesting to see the effect of LLMs on our cognitive skills. These discussions remind me a lot about this comic[1]. [1] https://www.monkeyuser.com/2023/deprecated/ https://www.monkeyuser.com/2023/deprecated/
pilif 1y ago
> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Why do I still know how to optimize free conventional memory in DOS by configuring config.sys and autoexec.bat? I haven’t done this in 2 decades and I’m reasonably sure I never again will
- rusk 1y ago
  Because these are core memories that provide stepping stones to later knowledge. It is a part of the story of you. It is very hard to integrate all knowledge in this way.
- dotancohen 1y ago
  Probably because you learned it during that brief period in your development in which humans are most impressionable. Now think about the effect on those humans currently using LLMs at that stage of their development.
- 15123123 1y ago
  I think because some experiences are so profound to your brain ( first impression, moments that you are proud of ) that you just replay them over and over again.
- lelele 1y ago
  Agreed. We remember many things that don't serve us anymore.
- flomo 1y ago
  Probably because there was some reward that you felt at the time was important (most likely playing a DOS game). I did this for a living at a large corp where I was the 'thinkpad guy', and I barely remember any of the tricks (and only some of the IBM stuff). Then Windows NT and 95 came out and like whoo cares... This was always dogshit. Because I was always an Apple/Unix guy and that was just a job.
- nottorp 1y ago
  To nitpick, your subconscious is aware computers have memory constraints even now and you write better code because of it even if you do javascript...
jancsika 1y ago
> And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Except when it does-- for example in the abstract where it is written that Brain-to-LLM users "exhibited higher memory recall" than LLM and LLM-to-Brain users.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
teekert 1y ago
I would call it cognitive debt. Have you ever tried writing a large report with an LLM? It's very tempting to let it write a lot, let it structure things, let it make arguments and visuals. It's easy to let it do more and more... And then you end up with something that is very much... Not yours. But your name is on it, you are asked to explain it, to understand it even better than it is written down. Surely the report is just a "2D projection" of some "high dimensional reality" that you have in you head... right? Normally it is, but when you spit out a report in 1/10th of the time it isn't. You struggle to explain concepts, even though they look nice on paper. I found that I just really have to do the work, to develop the mental models, to articulate and to re-articulate and re-articulate again. For different audiences in different ways. I like the term cognitive debt as a description of the gap between what mental models one would have to develop pre-LLMs to get a report out, and how little you may need with an LLM. In the end it is your name on that report/paper, what can we expect of you, the author? Maybe that will start slipping and we start expecting less over time? Maybe we can start skipping authors altogether and rely on the LLM's "mental" model when we have in depth questions about a report/paper... Who knows. But different models (like LLMs) may have different "models" (predictive algorithms) of underlying truth/reality. What allows for most accurate predictions? One needs a certain "depth of understanding". Writing while relying too much on LLMs will not give it to you. Over time indeed this may lead to a population "cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills." I don't dare to say that. Book printing didn't do that, although it was expected at the time by the religious elite, they worried that normal humans would not be able to interpret texts correctly. As remarked here in this thread before, I really do think that "Writing is thinking" (but perhaps there is something better than writing which we haven't invented yet). And thinking is: Developing a detailed mental model that allows you to predict the future with a probability better than chance. Our survival depends on it, in fact it is what evolution is in terms of information theory [0]. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of ... information." [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCHelnFKGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCHelnFKGc
- chubot 1y ago
  I found that I just really have to do the work, to develop the mental models, to articulate and to re-articulate and re-articulate again. For different audiences in different ways Yes definitely! I'd say that being able to turn an idea over in your head is how you know if you know it ... And even pre-LLM, it was easy to "appear to know" something, but not really know it. PG wrote pretty much this last year: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write. So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. https://paulgraham.com/writes.html https://paulgraham.com/writes.html
this_steve_j 1y ago
The terms “Cognitive decline” or “brain rot” may have sounded too sensational, and to be fair the authors note the limitations of the small sample size. Indeed the paper doesn’t provide a reference or citation for the term “cognitive debt” so it is a strange title. Maybe a last minute swap. Fascinating research out of MIT. Like all psychology studies it deserves healthy scrutiny and independent verification. Bit of a kitchen sink with the imaging and psychometric assessments, but who doesn’t love a picture of “this is your brain on LLMs” amirite?
amelius 1y ago
> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. Curious, did anyone try to learn a subject by predicting the next token, and how did it go?
- kamaal 1y ago
  Most of math is just that. Try to predict the next change and see if it sticks.

eru 1y ago

> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Sounds very plausible, though how does that square with the common experience that certain skills, famously 'riding a bike', never go away once learned?

pempem 1y ago
Such a good question - I hope someone answers with more than an anecdote (which is all I can provide) - I've found the skills that don't leave you like riding a bike, swimming, cooking are all physical skills. Tangible. The skills that leave: arguments, analysis, language, creativity often seem abstract and primarily if not exclusively sourced in our minds
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  Google "procedural memory". Procedural memory is more resistant to forgetting than other types of memory.
  - eru 1y ago
    I guess speaking a language employs some mixture of procedural and other types of memory?
wahern 1y ago
Closer to the truth is that the brain never completely forgets something, in the sense that there are always vestiges left over, even after the ability to recall or instantly draw upon it is long gone. Studies show, for example, that after one has "forgotten" a language, they're quicker to pick up it again later on compared to someone without that prior experience; how quickly being time dependent, but more quickly nonetheless. OTOH, IME the quickest way to truly forget something is to overwrite it. Photographs being a notorious example, where looking at photographs can overwrite your own personal episodic memory of an event. I don't know how much research exists exploring this phenomenon, though, but AFAIU there are studies at least showing that the mere act of recalling can reshape memories. So, ironically, perhaps the best way not to forget is to not remember. Left unstated in the above is that we can categorize different types of memory--episodic, semantic, implicit, etc--based on how they seem to operate. Generalizations (like the above ;) can be misleading.
rusk 1y ago
Riding a bike is a skill rather than what we would call a “memory” per se. It’s a skill that develops a new neural pathway throughout your extended nervous system bringing together the lesser senses of proprioception and balance. Once you bring these things together you then go on to use them for other things. You “know” (grok), rather than “understand” how a bike stays upright on a very deep physical level.
- eru 1y ago
  Sure. But speaking a language is also (at least partially) a skill, ain't it?
  - rusk 1y ago
    It is. It’s also something you don’t forget except in extreme cases like dementia. Skills are different from facts but we use the word memory interchangeably for each. It’s this nuance of language that causes a category error in your reasoning ain’t it.
gwd 1y ago
I think a better way to say it is that the brain doesn't commit to long term memory things that it doesn't need. I remember hearing about some research they'd done on "binge watching" -- basically, if you have two groups: 1. One group watches the entire series over the course of a week 2. A second group watches a series one episode per week Then some time later (maybe 6 months), ask them questions about the show, and the people in group 2 will remember significantly more. Anecdotally, I've found the same thing with Scottish Country Dancing. In SCD, you typically walk through a dance that has 16 or so "figures", then for the next 10 minutes you need to remember the figures over and over again from different perspectives (as 1st couple, 2nd couple, 3rd couple etc). Fairly quickly, my brain realized that it only needed to remember the figures for 10 minutes; and even the next morning if you'd asked me what the figures were for a dance the night before I couldn't have told you. I can totally believe it's the same thing with writing with an LLM (or having an assistant write a speech / report for you) -- if you're just skimming over things to make sure it looks right, your brain quickly figures out that it doesn't need to retain this information. Contrast this to riding a bike, where you almost certainly used the skill repeatedly over the course of at least a year.
KineticLensman 1y ago
> Sounds very plausible, though how does that square with the common experience that certain skills, famously 'riding a bike', never go away once learned? I worked with some researchers who specifically examined this when developing training content for soldiers. They found that 'muscle memory' skills such as riding a bike could persist for a very long time. At the other end of the spectrum were tasks that involved performing lots of technical steps in a particular order, but where the tasks themselves were only performed infrequently. The classic example was fault finding and diagnosis on military equipment. The researchers were in effect quantifying the 'forgetting curve' for specific tasks. For some key tasks, you could overtrain to improve the competence retention, but it was often easier to accept that training would wear off very quickly and give people a checklist instead.
- eru 1y ago
  Very interesting! Thanks for bringing this up.
devmor 1y ago
I am not an expert in the subject but I believe that motor neurons retain memory, even those not located inside the brain. They may be subject to different constraints than other neurons.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

vishnugupta 1y ago

> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. You have to stop and think. And most importantly you have to write. A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. Enables us to have a structured dialogue with ourselves. Explore different paths. Thinking & pondering can only do so much and will reach the limits soon. Writing, on the other hand enables one to explore thoughts nearly endlessly. Given that thinking is so intimately associated with writing (could be prose, drawing, equations, graphs/charts, whatever) and that LLMs are doing more and more of writing it'll be interesting to see the effect of LLMs on our cognitive skills.

Davidzheng 1y ago
I disagree with this take. I'd say often when exploring new math problems, often it's possible explore the possible solutions paths at lower technical levels first in your mind before anything down--when actually going into details of an approach. I don't think not writing is that limiting if all of your approaches already fail before going into details, which is often the case in early stages of math research.
- hamdouni 1y ago
  I can also explore by writing. Writing drafts can help structure my thinking.
  - hyper57 1y ago
    "The pen is an instrument of discovery rather than just a recording implement." ~ Billy Collins
supriyo-biswas 1y ago
> And most importantly you have to write. A lot. Writing allows our brain to structure our thinking. There's a lot of talk about AI assisted coding these days, but I've found similar issues where I'm unable to form a mental model of the program when I rely too much on them (amongst other issues where the model will make unnecessary changes, etc.). This is one of the reasons why I limit their use to "boring" tasks like refactoring or clarifying concepts that I'm unsure about. > it'll be interesting to see the effect of LLMs on our cognitive skills. These discussions remind me a lot about this comic[1]. [1] https://www.monkeyuser.com/2023/deprecated/ https://www.monkeyuser.com/2023/deprecated/

pilif 1y ago

> The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Why do I still know how to optimize free conventional memory in DOS by configuring config.sys and autoexec.bat? I haven’t done this in 2 decades and I’m reasonably sure I never again will

rusk 1y ago
Because these are core memories that provide stepping stones to later knowledge. It is a part of the story of you. It is very hard to integrate all knowledge in this way.
dotancohen 1y ago
Probably because you learned it during that brief period in your development in which humans are most impressionable. Now think about the effect on those humans currently using LLMs at that stage of their development.
15123123 1y ago
I think because some experiences are so profound to your brain ( first impression, moments that you are proud of ) that you just replay them over and over again.
lelele 1y ago
Agreed. We remember many things that don't serve us anymore.
flomo 1y ago
Probably because there was some reward that you felt at the time was important (most likely playing a DOS game). I did this for a living at a large corp where I was the 'thinkpad guy', and I barely remember any of the tricks (and only some of the IBM stuff). Then Windows NT and 95 came out and like whoo cares... This was always dogshit. Because I was always an Apple/Unix guy and that was just a job.
nottorp 1y ago
To nitpick, your subconscious is aware computers have memory constraints even now and you write better code because of it even if you do javascript...

jancsika 1y ago

> And also DUH. If you stop speaking a language you forget it. The brain does not retain information that it does not need. Except when it does-- for example in the abstract where it is written that Brain-to-LLM users "exhibited higher memory recall" than LLM and LLM-to-Brain users.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

teekert 1y ago

I would call it cognitive debt. Have you ever tried writing a large report with an LLM? It's very tempting to let it write a lot, let it structure things, let it make arguments and visuals. It's easy to let it do more and more... And then you end up with something that is very much... Not yours. But your name is on it, you are asked to explain it, to understand it even better than it is written down. Surely the report is just a "2D projection" of some "high dimensional reality" that you have in you head... right? Normally it is, but when you spit out a report in 1/10th of the time it isn't. You struggle to explain concepts, even though they look nice on paper. I found that I just really have to do the work, to develop the mental models, to articulate and to re-articulate and re-articulate again. For different audiences in different ways. I like the term cognitive debt as a description of the gap between what mental models one would have to develop pre-LLMs to get a report out, and how little you may need with an LLM. In the end it is your name on that report/paper, what can we expect of you, the author? Maybe that will start slipping and we start expecting less over time? Maybe we can start skipping authors altogether and rely on the LLM's "mental" model when we have in depth questions about a report/paper... Who knows. But different models (like LLMs) may have different "models" (predictive algorithms) of underlying truth/reality. What allows for most accurate predictions? One needs a certain "depth of understanding". Writing while relying too much on LLMs will not give it to you. Over time indeed this may lead to a population "cognitive decline, or loss of cognitive skills." I don't dare to say that. Book printing didn't do that, although it was expected at the time by the religious elite, they worried that normal humans would not be able to interpret texts correctly. As remarked here in this thread before, I really do think that "Writing is thinking" (but perhaps there is something better than writing which we haven't invented yet). And thinking is: Developing a detailed mental model that allows you to predict the future with a probability better than chance. Our survival depends on it, in fact it is what evolution is in terms of information theory [0]. "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of ... information." [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCHelnFKGc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PCHelnFKGc

chubot 1y ago
I found that I just really have to do the work, to develop the mental models, to articulate and to re-articulate and re-articulate again. For different audiences in different ways Yes definitely! I'd say that being able to turn an idea over in your head is how you know if you know it ... And even pre-LLM, it was easy to "appear to know" something, but not really know it. PG wrote pretty much this last year: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write. So a world divided into writes and write-nots is more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of thinks and think-nots. https://paulgraham.com/writes.html https://paulgraham.com/writes.html

this_steve_j 1y ago

The terms “Cognitive decline” or “brain rot” may have sounded too sensational, and to be fair the authors note the limitations of the small sample size. Indeed the paper doesn’t provide a reference or citation for the term “cognitive debt” so it is a strange title. Maybe a last minute swap. Fascinating research out of MIT. Like all psychology studies it deserves healthy scrutiny and independent verification. Bit of a kitchen sink with the imaging and psychometric assessments, but who doesn’t love a picture of “this is your brain on LLMs” amirite?

amelius 1y ago

> You can't just skim a math textbook and know all the math. Curious, did anyone try to learn a subject by predicting the next token, and how did it go?

kamaal 1y ago
Most of math is just that. Try to predict the next change and see if it sticks.