AI models show lasting cognitive decline after exposure to low-quality text

AI models can suffer lasting cognitive decline from low-quality text, similar to human "brain rot," a pre-print study suggests. Researchers found that training AI on short, viral content led to significant drops in reasoning and understanding, with models exhibiting increased "thought-skipping" and even "dark traits" like psychopathy and narcissism. Even attempts to "heal" the models with high-quality data showed persistent negative effects, highlighting the need for careful data curation in AI training.