The Cost of AI: Digital Dementia & The Death of Critical Thinking

Nonsense with cj little and Jeff Parker · Jun 4, 2026 · 25m

(0:00) Pre-Show

(1:11) Open

(3:11) The Studies With The Data

(9:45) Cognitive Offloading

(12:54) Where Have All The Experts Gone?

(17:29) The LLM Brain Rot Hypothesis

(19:26) Save Your Meatware: Do Puzzles!

(22:05) cj’s recommendation: WALL-E (2008)

(23:12) Jeff’s Recommendation: Dead Poets Society (1989)

Are you letting ChatGPT write your emails, summarize your reports, and do your basic thinking? Congratulations, you might be actively shrinking your prefrontal cortex!

This week, Nonsense tackles the literal biological cost of artificial intelligence. If you think tools like Gemini and…