Your Brain on AI: Is ChatGPT making us mentally lazy?
Normal Curves: Sexy Science, Serious Statistics · Regina Nuzzo and Kristin Sainani
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (op3.dev) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
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."
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:
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
- (23:54) - Interview results
- (30:04) - Simple text analysis results
- (34:04) - Natural language processing results
- (41:00) - N-gram and ontology analysis results
- (45:55) - Teacher evaluation results
- (52:30) - Neuroimaging analysis
- (01:00:32) - Multiple testing and connectivity issues
- (01:06:10) - Brain adaptation results
- (01:09:47) - Wrap-up, rating, and methodological morals