I caught myself typing before thinking.
It used to take me minutes to find the right words. Now it takes ChatGPT seconds.
It feels efficient until you realise your brain is watching from the sidelines.

Turns out, that isn’t paranoia. It’s measurable.

Earlier this year, researchers at MIT Media Lab ran an experiment called Your Brain on ChatGPT, published as a preprint in June 2025 (not yet peer-reviewed).
They wanted to see what happens inside the brain when humans write with and without AI assistance.
“Study: MIT Media Lab, Your Brain on ChatGPT (preprint, June 2025).”

Fifty-four participants, aged between 18 and 39, were split into three groups:

Each participant wore an EEG cap, a device that tracks real-time electrical signals in the brain.
Over three sessions, they wrote essays using their assigned method. In a fourth session, they switched tools: the AI users had to write with no help, and the “brain-only” writers got to use ChatGPT for the first time.

What happened was striking.
The group using ChatGPT showed the lowest neural connectivity, meaning fewer regions of the brain were talking to each other while writing.
They also struggled to recall what they had just written, and reported feeling less ownership of their own words.
Even when they switched back to writing without AI, their brain activity stayed subdued, a kind of cognitive “aftertaste” that didn’t immediately fade.

It wasn’t about intelligence.
It was about engagement.
The more they outsourced thinking, the less their brain lit up.

AI didn’t make us efficient.
It made us forget what real thinking feels like, the messy, stubborn, human kind that can’t be prompted.

This study hit me like a brick.
For months, I’ve been in constant production mode, building, writing, testing, automating.
Always output, never pause.

But reading this forced me to stop and think.
Not as a creator, not as a founder, just as a human with a brain that deserves to breathe.

This isn’t a call to abandon AI.
It’s a call to remember yourself inside it.

I’m building a community around AI, but I want to do it responsibly.
To learn the risks as deeply as the rewards.
To build a quieter corner in this loud, panicked world where we can pause before we’re swallowed by the noise.

Everyone out there is shouting:
“Use AI or be left behind.”
And maybe they’re right, but they’re also missing the point.
We can embrace the future without outsourcing our minds.
We can be curious without surrendering our consciousness.

So, take a moment.
Close the tabs. Let your brain hum on its own frequency for once. It’s okay to be human too; in fact, it’s necessary.

And I know, maybe this isn’t what I’m supposed to say.
Maybe it’s not in my “interest” to tell you to slow down when everyone else is shouting, “go faster!”
But I made myself a promise: to stay honest, to only share tools I’ve tested and trust, to keep things simple for my non-techie friends, and to protect the one thing AI can’t replace, our ability to think.

So, this week’s edition is different.
A small act of resistance.
A reflection in a noisy time.

Don’t worry, next week, I’ll be back with tools, prompts, and tricks to make your workflow faster.
But for now, this one’s a breath between the upgrades.

Read more about the study here.

As a result, I started a ritual.
A way to wake up the idea-generating part of my brain, the muscle that built everything I have.

As a founder and creator, idea generation isn’t optional.
It’s the core of marketing, storytelling, innovation, everything.
And somewhere between prompts, dashboards, and automations, I realised I’d stopped exercising it.

So I started a document called “Orgesa’s Insanely Great Ideas.”
Every day, I force myself to write ten new marketing or creative ideas for my businesses, no matter how ridiculous, bold, or impossible.
Most of them will never see daylight. That’s not the point.
The point is to keep the brain alive; the same way we train our bodies, we have to train our original thinking.

And yes, I stole the phrase “insanely great” from Steve Jobs.
He used to say Apple would only ship insanely great products, or nothing at all.
So this is my version of that discipline.

So here’s my challenge:
Before your next ChatGPT prompt, stop and write your own answer first, even if it’s messy.
Then use AI to polish it, not replace it.
You’ll notice the difference instantly, that spark of recognition when the output still sounds like you.

That’s the future I want us to build together, one where AI scales our ideas, not erases them.
Next week, I’ll bring you back to the tools and workflows that do exactly that, the ones that save hours without costing identity.

Because AI shouldn’t silence you.
It should amplify what’s already alive.

See you next Wednesday with more ways to cut the busywork and get your time back.
Orgesa Meli

P.S. It would mean a lot if you forward this to someone who’d benefit. I’m building a community of people who want to work smarter with AI, not just a list of names. Subscribe to my community here.