The study itself is entirely benign, and I'd actually accept it as a reason to eschew AI in an educational context. Their conclusion is basically "if you use an LLM to write an essay you tend to not retain the information as well", which is... Downright boring in how reasonable it is. Particularly given the converse observation I wouldn't have expected: if you are already familiar with a subject then using an LLM to write an essay can strengthen your understanding.

The "journal" this summary of the study was shared in is quackery, so I'm not surprised they distorted the findings.

Nothing bad ever happens.

Literally every piece of technology introduced in the past thousand years has had this kind of hue and cry built up around it, beginning with the printing press and books in Europe.

The ill-concieved printing press argument is a standard pro-AI trope.

Remember when television would "rot kids' minds"? Remember when the Internet was going to end civilization as we know it?

Yeah, i don't know where you live but here in America our democracy is in shreds thanks to those things. They came true, just as they said it would. Environmental collapse is next, for those keeping score at home.