Your Brain on AI: Is ChatGPT making us mentally lazy?

Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious Statistics

ChatGPT is melting our brainpower, killing creativity, and making us soulless — or so the headlines imply. We dig into the study behind the claims, starting with quirky bar charts and mysterious sample sizes, then winding through hairball-like brain diagrams and tens of thousands of statistical tests. Our statistical sleuthing leaves us with questions, not just about the results, but about whether this was science’s version of a first date that looked better on paper.

Statistical topics

• ANOVA
• Bar graphs
• Data visualization
• False Discovery Rate correction
• Multiple testing
• Preprints
• Statistical Sleuthing

Methodological morals

• "Treat your preprints like your blind dates. Show up showered and with teeth brushed."
• "Always check your N. Then check it again."
• "Never make a bar graph that just shows p-values. Ever."

Link to paper

Kristin and Regina’s online courses:

• Demystifying Data: A Modern Approach to Statistical Understanding
• Clinical Trials: Design, Strategy, and Analysis
• Medical Statistics Certificate Program
• Writing in the Sciences
• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program

Programs that we teach in:

• Epidemiology and Clinical Research Graduate Certificate Program

Find us on:

Kristin - LinkedIn & Twitter/X

Regina - LinkedIn & ReginaNuzzo.com

• (00:00) - Intro
• (03:46) - Media coverage of the study
• (08:35) - The experiment
• (12:09) - Sample size issues
• (13:11) - Bar chart sleuthing
• (19:15) - Blind date analogy
• (22:57) - Interview results
• (29:07) - Simple text analysis results
• (33:07) - Natural language processing results
• (40:03) - N-gram and ontology analysis results
• (44:58) - Teacher evaluation results
• (51:33) - Neuroimaging analysis
• (59:35) - Multiple testing and connectivity issues
• (01:05:13) - Brain adaptation results
• (01:08:50) - Wrap-up, rating, and methodological morals