Generative AI and Brain Rot: Exploring the Potential Risks and Mitigating Strategies

Brain rot, in general, seems to be in vogue these days.

Allow me to clarify, discussions and handwringing about brain-rot are in vogue. As I will soon show you, there is a whole lot of active and quite boisterous chatter about the impacts of social media on our brains, especially those of the younger generations, for which the dire exhortation is made that the flotsam of online Internet-fed videos and podcasts are turning all our minds into utter mush.

Ergo, the seemingly proper or decidedly “in” way to describe the phenomena seems to be by referring to brain rot.

Before I get too far into this, there is even a feverish debate about how to suitably spell the wording of “brain rot”. Some say it is best to use two distinct words, namely the word “brain” followed by the word “rot”. I tend to like this version. Others prefer the hyphenated version, brain-rot. I admittedly use that version too. Still, others contend it should be smushed together as in brainrot. I’m not a fan of that variation and tend to avoid using it.

The reason I bring up brain-rot at all is that my prediction on this weighty matter is that we are soon headed beyond the angst and qualms about social media and heading pell-mell toward akin angst and qualms about generative AI. In short, you can anticipate that a heated tirade will arise that generative AI is leading us to brain-rot.

If you haven’t yet considered that facet, I’m proud to say that you are now about to get quite a telling about whether or not generative AI is going to cause massive large-scale widespread brain-rot.

It’s a matter well worth considering.

Let’s briefly back up.

For my ongoing readers, in today’s column, I am continuing my ongoing series about the impact of generative AI in the health and medical realm. The focus this time is once again on the mental health domain and examines whether the expanding use of generative AI is going to lead us to a glut of brain-rot.

Yes, you could say that conceiving of generative AI as a polluter of the mind that causes brain rot is most assuredly a concerted mental health topic. The aim is that generative AI will hopefully boost mental health, rather than undermining mental health. Obviously, brain-rot is beyond undermining mental health and is more along the lines of devilishly destroying mental health.

Something to be given serious due.

I have previously examined numerous interleaving facets of generative AI and mental health, see my comprehensive overview at the link here. You might also find of notable interest a CBS 60 Minutes episode that recently examined crucial facets of this evolving topic, see the link here (I am honored and pleased to indicate that I was featured in the episode, see the link here).

Other vital background includes my in-depth coverage of mental health chatbots which have been bolstered by generative AI (see the link here) and the rapidly changing nature of the client-therapist relationship due to generative AI at the link here. I explored where things are headed regarding the levels of AI-based mental therapy autonomous guidance at the link here, and showcased the importance of the World Health Organization (WHO) report on global health and generative AI at the link here, and so on.

Let’s dive directly into today’s focus.

Understanding Brain Rot

I’d like to unpack brain rot, thanks.

I suppose that we all have a visceral sense of what people mean when they talk about brain rot. The idea is straightforward. Your brain will rot and become unsound or extraordinarily weak. You won’t be able to carry on the rudiments of thinking. The use of the word “rot” is handy since it implies that brain-rot won’t necessarily occur overnight. Instead, we associate that rotting takes a bit of time, whereby something gradually decomposes or decays.

A lighter touch of brain rot might be to say that someone had a brain fart, or more politely that they are occupied with brain fog. Those are lighter due to being considered temporary. You are momentarily immersed in brain fog. Just like the fog that shrouds the mountains or bridges, fog soon dissipates and disappears. If you suffer from a bout of brain fog, no worries, the odds are it will pass along, and your thinking processes will still be intact.

Not so with brain rot.

Brain rot is assumed to be a decay that has a relatively permanent reductive capacity. You are losing the capacity to think. Step by step, your mind is being eroded. There is not much you can do once your brain-rot has reached a deeper threshold. Your mind is presumably a goner.

Do not despair. Most speculations about brain-rot suggest that if you catch yourself before the rot has done its worst efforts, you can at least remain at a stalemate. Furthermore, you can thankfully undertake remedial action to overcome the brain rot that has occurred. There is hope. You can likely lift yourself out of the brain-rot abyss, though it is going to undoubtedly take concerted attention and hard work. Sorry, nothing in life is easy, including turning around brain-rot.

Here’s something for you to give contemplative thought to concerning this intriguing topic.

Are people who speak of brain-rot saying that your physical brain is rotting or otherwise entering biological or anatomical disrepair or are they referring to in a sense the “software” of your brain, specifically the elements of your mind or the thinking capacity of the physical brain inside your noggin?

It is an interesting twist. Some might argue that your mind is the subject of the rot, not your physical brain. Thus, you just need to reconfigure your mind. The brain is still all there, ready to go. Others would suggest that your mind is going, and your physical brain is going too. There is a rewiring within your brain that entails physical changes. If so, the desire to undo the rot is a much harder uphill climb.

Moving on, anyone that has studied history or lived on this earth for more than say fifty years or so will remember that there were huge warnings that TV was going to lead to brain-rot. Before TV, people mainly relied upon radio. Radio required crafting mental pictures in your head of what was being said. This presumably required extensive thinking processes.

TV was said to feed you moving pictures and take away the need to think. Kids were going to get hit the worst. They would grow up watching TV and their minds would no longer need to be creative or otherwise perform thinking processes. TV would feed junk into their heads, and they would ultimately become mental zombies.

We can debate whether that transpired, though it seems evident that wholescale brain-rot did not seem to happen (a smarmy person might claim otherwise, but let’s not go there here).

Modern times have changed the narrative. We now refer to Internet brain-rot, and social media brain-rot, and in fact, there are plenty of memes out there about brain-rot. Some online users relish pointing out posted content that they deem as likely to produce brain-rot. It can be a diss. Look at this lousy mind-numbing stuff that this or that person posted. It is pure brain-rot material.

Others love to be known for producing brain-rot content. They go out of their way to do so. Sitting around, they try to come up with the worst possible brain-rot material. Their users look to them to do so. If the brain-rot factor is low, those users will complain and indubitably go elsewhere to get their daily dose of brain-rot.

Another perspective on brain rot is that anyone who spends an excessive amount of time online is flirting with brain-rot. Notice that this doesn’t necessarily take into account what you are consuming online. The sheer number of hours of being online is what will do the trick. You might be watching cutesy duck videos, or maybe videos on engineering or science, and they are considered indistinguishable simply if you consume them in vast quantities and non-stop marathons.

I’ve got yet another angle on brain-rot for you.

Suppose that an online “influencer” opted to post a video or a tweet that you earnestly believe is outrightly stupid. The sharp-tongued way to blast them is to say they have become corroded with brain-rot. That will cut them down to size. The person will now attempt to defend themselves against a blanket accusation of brain rot. It can be a losing battle. The more they argue they aren’t infused with brain rot, the more you will insist they are. Lose-lose for that person. Win-win for you.

Whew, that’s a lot about brain rot.

You can clearly see that brain rot has lots of utility as a form of describing people or things. It can be an insult. It can be a badge of honor. It can be a worrisome future. And so on. Like the proverbial elephant that is depicted by a variety of seemingly disparate components (i.e., trunk, tail, ears), the modern brain-rot moniker can be wielded in many cunning ways.

Tracing The Use Of Brain Rot As A Descriptor

I’d like to note that brain-rot as a wielded piece of vocabulary has been around for quite a while.

It isn’t brand new. It isn’t a shocker. Only those who for whatever reason haven’t heard or seen it before might falsely think it is some clever new saying. That being said, certainly the interpretations and various ways of employing brain-rot as a descriptor have morphed to some degree.

Consider for example that in the 1960s, the phrase “brain rot” was at times used in the medical literature as an informal means of referring to mental conditions (I’ve bolded the “brain rot” in this quoted excerpt, and others, to help make the phrase stand out for your ease of inspection):

“Dementia is a common feature but sometimes the true nature of the condition is observed to some extent by the fact that it may present in a fairly acute form following some febrile illness or traumatic incident. The diagnosis is confirmed by enzyme studies, electroencephalography, and cerebral biopsies so that the optic atrophy is merely an incidental finding as confirmatory evidence of the extent of the ‘brain rot’ which characterizes the condition.” (Source: “Clinical Assessment”, by Kenneth Wybar, Section of Ophthalmology, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, Volume 62, June 1969).

An article that was published in 2018 noted the prior worries about TV causing brain rot, as I mentioned earlier:

“Remember all those warnings that TV would cause brain rot? Never happened.” (Source: “The Big Myth About Teenage Anxiety” by Richard Friedman, International Herald Tribune, September 2018).

When computer games became popular, this too became a worrisome preoccupation about the potential of endless computer game playing that would lead to brain-rot. In this article in 2008, a point was made that perhaps newer games could aid the training of the brain and serve to blunt or curtail brain rot:

“Recently, new games such as ‘Brain Training’ for the Nintendo DS have begun to counter the idea that games are pure brain-rot.” (Source: “Let The Games Begin (Computer Games)” by R. Mileham, IEEE Engineering & Technology, August 2008).

Around that same time, the belief was voiced that people could explicitly perform mental gymnastics to hopefully stop the scourge of brain rot:

“A number of researchers posit that mental gymnastics can inhibit brain rot, Alzheimer’s disease, and dementia.” (Source: “The Brain As Game Controller” by Patrick Kierkegaard, International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry, February 2010).

We eventually became a digital world, and the use of smartphones shifted our focus to the ways that such mobile devices might be used, including doom-scrolling on social media:

“Concerns over kids using iPhones and teens scrolling social media may lead us to see all digital media as a source of brain rot.” (Source: “Meet the people who listen to podcasts 24/7” by Tatum Hunter, The Washington Post, August 2023).

The drumbeat of social media as a promoter of brain rot is not always cast as the worst thing ever. For example, this author was able to make a successful career via social media and attested that brain rot is perhaps a bit of an overstatement or distraction:

“We can talk about Instagram-induced social distancing and Twitter-X-fueled brain rot until the cows come home. I, however, want to take a little opportunity to talk about a few pleasures that come from social media. Obviously, I am biased on the topic. I have made a whole career out of the social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.” (Source: “In Defence Of Social Media” by Tom Sainsbury, Ingenio Magazine, University of Auckland, Spring 2023).

Bringing us up to current times, a recent article in the mainstream media opted to take up the mantle of brain rot and reinvigorate the concerns of it as a said-to-be new online affliction:

“If you or someone you love speaks almost exclusively in internet references — “It’s giving golden retriever boyfriend energy” or “Show it to me Rachel” — they may be suffering from a condition known as “brainrot.” The term refers primarily to low-value internet content and the effects caused by spending too much time consuming it. Example: “I’ve been watching so many TikToks, I have brainrot.” Online discussion of brainrot has recently grown so widespread that some social media users have begun creating parodies of people who seem to embody the condition.” (Source: “’Brainrot’ Is The New Online Affliction” by Jessica Roy, New York Times, June 13, 2024).
“Accusing someone of having brainrot is not a compliment. But some people evince a hint of pride in admitting to the condition. A recent BuzzFeed quiz challenging readers on obscure internet trivia was headlined: “If you pass this brainrot quiz, your brain is 1000% cooked.” (ibid).

Should we be worried about brain rot?

In a sense, of course, though we should be cautious in crying wolf about what drives or leads to brain rot. It is easy-peasy to refer to just about anything you want as causing brain rot. Also, you can be flimsy and loosey-goosey about what you mean by the mental state or condition of the brain as to being seemingly engulfed in “brain rot”.

Overall, this commonly used phrase is an inadequate indication and lacks specific scientific rigor as a means of quantifying or measuring actual mental health. Think of brain-rot as a throwaway line that readily grabs eyeballs and gets people talking. Be wary of its use and overuse.

This does not mean we are to ignore it or downplay the concerns at the heart of the matter. We do still need to be watching for fires, such that where there is smoke there might be a real fire. The problem with brain-rot references is that you cannot easily know whether the terminology is being used comically, seriously, or even if seriously to what degree of rigor.

The brain-rot aspect is important enough that mental health implications and mental health practices are being recommended to either prevent brain rot or cope with it once the blight has seemingly taken hold. For example, in a posting entitled “Combating Brainrot: Reclaiming Mental Wellness in a Digital World” by John Crimmins, Healthnews online, December 11, 2023, here are salient points made (excerpts):

“Brain rot is a condition of mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline that results from an overabundance of screen time.” “One brain rot behavior is doomscrolling, which involves long periods of searching for negative and distressing news online.” “Consequences of brain rot include difficulty organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and recalling information.” “To prevent or reduce brain rot, try limiting screen time, deleting distracting apps from your phone, and turning off unnecessary notifications.”

All in all, you can rest assured that brain-rot as a topic has a longstanding history. We must always be on our toes because brain-rot might just be around the next bend, especially when it comes to advances in technology and the emergence of new tech such as modern-day generative AI.

Generative AI And The Brain Rot Conundrum

What in the world does generative AI have to do with brain rot?

I’m really glad you asked that question.

First, let’s talk about generative AI and large language models (LLMs), doing so to make sure we are on the same page when it comes to discussing the intermixing with brain-rot (we’ve sufficiently covered brain-rot as a topic up until this point in the discussion, now it is time to shine a light on what generative AI is).

I’m sure you’ve heard of generative AI.

Perhaps you’ve even used a generative AI app, such as the popular ones of ChatGPT, GPT-4o, Gemini, Bard, Claude, etc. The crux is that generative AI can take input from your text-entered prompts and produce or generate a response that seems quite fluent. This is a vast overturning of the old-time natural language processing (NLP) that used to be stilted and awkward to use, which has been shifted into a new version of NLP fluency of an at times startling or amazing caliber.

The customary means of achieving modern generative AI involves using a large language model or LLM as the key underpinning.

In brief, a computer-based model of human language is established that in the large has a large-scale data structure and does massive-scale pattern-matching via a large volume of data used for initial data training. The data is typically found by extensively scanning the Internet for lots and lots of essays, blogs, poems, narratives, and the like. The mathematical and computational pattern-matching homes in on how humans write, and then henceforth generates responses to posed questions by leveraging those identified patterns. It is said to be mimicking the writing of humans.

I think that is sufficient for the moment as a quickie backgrounder. Take a look at my extensive coverage of the technical underpinnings of generative AI and LLMs at the link here and the link here, just to name a few.

We can now look at four major ways that I predict we are going to be doing a lot of handwringing concerning the advent of generative AI and