Welcome, humans.
90% of college students admit to using ChatGPT for schoolwork.
Here’s why this matters: An MIT study just proved that using AI to write your essays for you means you don’t actually learn from them (go figure).
Students who relied on ChatGPT showed weaker neural connectivity and couldn't even remember what they'd “written” moments later (10:09).
Meanwhile, one Austin school threw out the rulebook entirely—and now, their kids learn their entire curriculum in just 2 hours a day using AI tutors, then spend afternoons on wilderness camps and entrepreneurship.
They claim students are learning 2x faster than traditional schools…and in some cases, 6.5x faster.
So is AI destroying education… or revolutionizing it? The answer might surprise you…
How AI Could Solve Education (Instead of Breaking It)
In our latest podcast episode, Grant and Corey unpack the AI education crisis:
- (1:53) The viral UCLA "CheatGPT" moment that wasn't what it seemed.
- (10:09) MIT's brain study: Why AI users performed 17% worse without it.
- (13:40) The shocking difference between "good" and "bad" AI tutoring.
- (35:13) Inside Alpha School: Where AI replaced teachers (and what happened).
- (43:06) How teachers are secretly using AI to save 6 hours per week.
- (52:03) OpenAI's $10M plan to train 400,000 teachers.
- (1:00:18) The "Struggle-First" method: How to use AI without frying your brain.
Bottom line: The students using AI as a crutch aren’t learning as much. But those using it as a sparring partner? Allegedly, they're learning faster than ever. The difference comes down to one counterintuitive principle: desirable difficulty.
In essence: why (some) struggle is actually required in order to learn.
Listen now on YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts
Dive deeper with these resources:
- WTF is going on with AI and education (Grant's full investigation)
- The MIT “cognitive debt” study
- Ethan Mollick: "Against brain damage"
- Alpha School's 2-hour learning model
- Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
- OpenAI's teacher training initiative
- The Wharton Tutor Prompt (and more prompts here).
Stay curious, The Neuron Team
P.S: Grant shares his personal “4-step workflow for learning with AI” at (1:00:18). It's based on cognitive science research (from Make it Stick!) and might change how you think about using ChatGPT to study forever. You can read the full thing here (just do command / control + F to find and type “4-step workflow”) 🎓
