‘As a machine thinketh, so he becomes’: New study reveals AI gets brain rot from consuming digital junk

For the majority of modern Americans, scrolling, computer work, streaming, and other forms of screen time have largely, if not completely, replaced reading, introspection, and deep conversation.

We are very quickly becoming “stupid slugs,” Glenn Beck says.

And he means stupid quite literally. Studies have proven time and again that our ability to concentrate and stay focused has become almost laughable. Recent reports indicate that Netflix and other digital entertainment companies are considering adapting content strategies — simplifying narratives, dialogue, and visuals — to accommodate viewers’ shortened attention spans and inability to follow complex plotlines.

“Everything that we’re doing online is fracturing attention, memory, and sustained reasoning,” Glenn says. “So, at what point does this become an epidemic? At what point are our minds starving for any kind of nutrition as we just feed them calories of noise?”

But our own rapid cognitive erosion isn’t even the wildest story. A new study has revealed that AI also experiences brain rot from consuming the same virtual junk that’s making humans dumber.

Large language models like Grok, ChatGPT, and Gemini “are trained on junk web content — so viral, shallow, high-engagement stuff,” Glenn says.

Just like a chronically online person, AI bots are experiencing a decline in “reasoning ability” and “long-context memory.” Further, “dark personality traits (psychopathic tendencies and narcissism)” begin to emerge the longer the bot feeds on digital junk — eerily similar to the terminally online rage-goblin hunched in a dark basement, marinating in memes and manufactured outrage.

But that’s not even the most disturbing part of the study. When researchers began replacing junk content with “clean, high-quality data,” the AI model was unable to recover to baseline capacity.

“The rot remains. As a man — or now as a machine — thinketh, so he becomes,” Glenn says ominously.

This study is a lesson every person living in the digital age needs to hear, and yet, it’s garnered little attention.

But even if it did attract the eye of the public, would it ultimately make a difference? Glenn is concerned we’ll be “too apathetic to wean ourselves off the digital heroin,” even if the consequences are staring us right in the face.

And then there’s this reality to contend with: Even if people reverse course, the study suggests that it might be too late anyway. The AI bot that fed on junk never could fully recover. Will we be the same?

If that’s our bleak reality, then we must also face the possibility that our children will inherit our shallowness — and most disturbingly, that at some point, our inability to think critically will culminate in the collective loss of human agency.

But even still, Glenn isn’t ready to give up. “Can we get people to actually listen to this and then engage again in thoughtful reading and conversation and meaningful silence?” he asks.

So much is at stake — time, freedom, connection, purpose.

Glenn warns: “It’s up to us, America.”

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