LLMs Can Get "Brain Rot"!

Researchers tested whether continually training large language models on low-quality social media content causes lasting cognitive decline, similar to how "brain rot" affects humans consuming endless junk content online. Their controlled experiments using Twitter/X data showed that models exposed to engaging but shallow posts or sensationalized content experienced significant drops in reasoning abilities, memory tasks, and ethical behavior while developing undesirable personality traits like narcissism and psychopathy.