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  • Is ChatGPT Use Linked to Cognitive Decline? 🧠

Is ChatGPT Use Linked to Cognitive Decline? 🧠

How to turn search results into an AI-generated podcast

Author

Gina Acosta
June 20, 2025

Welcome to another edition of Horizon AI,

Does ChatGPT harm critical thinking abilities? A new study from researchers at MIT’s Media Lab has raised some alarms.

Let’s get started!

Read Time: 4.5 min

Here's what's new today in the Horizon AI

  • MIT Study Warns: ChatGPT May Harm Critical Thinking

  • Six-Month-Old Startup Sells for $80M

  • AI Tutorial: How to turn search results into an AI-generated podcast

  • AI Tools to check out

  • AI Findings/Resources

  • Tweet of the Day

  • The Latest in AI and Tech 💡

AI News

AI RESEARCH

MIT Study Warns: ChatGPT May Harm Critical Thinking

A new study from MIT’s Media Lab has raised concerns about the long-term effects of using AI tools like ChatGPT on critical thinking. The research suggests that relying on ChatGPT could lead to reduced brain activity and weaker cognitive performance over time, especially in younger users.

Details:

  • Participants were divided into three groups—those using ChatGPT, Google, and no tools at all (“brain-only”). Their brain activity was monitored using EEG while writing SAT essays.

  • The ChatGPT group showed the lowest brain engagement and performed poorly in neural, linguistic, and behavioral measures. Over time, they shifted from using ChatGPT for guidance to copying and pasting entire essays.

  • Google users had moderate brain activity, while the “brain-only” group demonstrated the strongest and most diverse brain engagement.

  • The study’s lead author, Nataliya Kosmyna, highlighted the risks for developing brains, warning against introducing AI tools like ChatGPT in early education.

While tools like ChatGPT can be helpful in education, these findings emphasize the need for special consideration of how it’s applied, as AI integration continues to grow—with recent government initiatives pushing for its use in classrooms.

BASE44

Six-Month-Old Startup Sells for $80M

Israeli developer Maor Shlomo has sold his six-month-old, vibe-coding startup, Base44, to Wix for $80 million in cash.

Details:

  • Base44 allows users to build software applications without coding, growing to 250,000 users in just six months and generating $189,000 in profit in May.

  • Of the $80 million, $25 million will be distributed as retention bonuses to Base44’s eight employees.

  • Shlomo cited the need for greater resources to scale the platform as the reason for the sale, saying, “The scale and volume we need is not something we can organically grow into.”

  • The acquisition aligns with Wix’s no-code offerings, which already include tools like no-code website building.

Base44’s meteoric rise and acquisition underscore the potential of AI-driven tools and the growing trend of small-team startups achieving big success in a short time.

AI Tutorial

How to turn search results into an AI-generated podcast

Google recently introduced a new experiment to generate quick, conversational audio overviews for certain search queries.

  1. Go to Google labs and opt into the experiment.

  2. Once you make any search, Google will determine if it might be useful to generate an Audio Overview. If that’s the case, you’ll see a button beneath the “People also ask” module that says “Generate Audio Overview.”

  3. Click the button and wait a few seconds for the Audio Overview to generate.

  4. It will appear in a small player embedded within your search results, where you can play, pause, mute, and adjust the playback speed of the clip.

  5. The Audio Overview features two AI-generated “hosts” who enthusiastically discuss the topic you searched for

  6. You’ll also find links to some of the sources it used directly below the playback bar in Search.

  7. You can provide feedback on the experiment by giving a thumbs up or down on each discussion.

AI Tools to check out

🗣 Ztalk: Break language barriers in video calls with AI-powered real-time translation.

👨‍💻 Daytona: Secure and elastic infrastructure for running your AI-generated code.

⏳ Base44: Turn your ideas into products, in minutes.

📈 Aha: The world’s first multi-agent team 24/7 working on influencer marketing, with built-in scalability for any industry.

📹 Higgsfield: GenAI video platform designed specifically for creative professionals.

AI Findings/Resources

🤗 5 of the most heartwarming uses of AI we’ve seen so far

🤔 I asked ChatGPT the top ten things humanity should know

Tweet of the Day

AI-Generated ASMR Is Taking Over the Internet

The latest in AI and Tech

According to Bloomberg, Elon Musk’s AI startup is burning through $1 billion a month due to the high costs of building advanced AI models, with expected losses of $13 billion in 2025.

Elon Musk has rejected those claims, stating that “Bloomberg is talking nonsense.”

The model clones voices using just a few seconds of audio and runs locally. Resemble AI claims it performed better than ElevenLabs in blind tests, though it only supports English for now.

The Amazon-owned autonomous vehicle company Zoox expects to one day build 10,000 robotaxis per year. The company is already testing its vehicles in multiple U.S. cities and offering rides to early-access participants in Las Vegas.

Meta is reportedly planning to hire Daniel Gross, CEO of Safe Superintelligence, and former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, after failing to acquire Ilya Sutskever’s startup, which launched just a year ago and is already valued at $32 billion.

The Financial Times reports that the BBC demanded Perplexity immediately stop scraping its content, delete stored BBC material, and provide financial compensation.

That’s a wrap!

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Gina 👩🏻‍💻