Here’s my idea: we put a sign outside every high school in America. On this sign would be the message: We promise we’re learning here! We’re just also using AI! It is possible for them to work together! We promise!
Over the past year, a divide has broken out within LHS on the topic of artificial intelligence, or as it’s better known as, AI. In both the faculty and the students, there are those who love the new technology, while others despise it. In all age groups, there are people who have used AI for either creating or completing assignments, and their argument is that they use AI for educating themselves for their classes, and being educated is highly overwhelming without artificial assistance. Not only that, but if AI is going to be part of our future, why not learn to use it?
However, there are certainly those against AI. Many teachers and students have sworn against it. Some teachers have begun to take greater measures to avoid their students cheating using AI. This could be anywhere between putting digital work through AI checkers, to having students complete all their assignments in class. It’s a time-consuming process, for the teachers and students both. The students who are against AI feel like the work they’re doing is useless, and that their teachers don’t trust them because other students are cheating with AI. There’s always been a slight untrust in schools with plagiarism and other types of typical cheating, but there’s so much more now.
But is using AI really cheating? I mean, users have to spend thirty whole seconds inputting a prompt or scanning their homework. It’s a long, painstaking process that is completely comparable with the learning that comes with actually doing the work. Often, conversations around the school follow this exact topic. Some people claim that AI is unavoidable, and it will only become more necessary to understand in the foreseeable future.
I, for one, think that’s stupid. To erase human creativity and education, only to replace it for convenience, is something that science fiction novels have warned us about for decades. With our reliance on technology, we are developing into a generation that cannot think for ourselves without the use of a computer. Even just using AI to find sources limits us to using high traffic references, and prevents us from developing patience. AI is a scary concept to think about within the confines of education, but gets worse when applying to our postgraduate lives. Our over-reliance on artificial intelligence will stall our innovation, and only serve to hurt our general population. This is only the beginning, and it’s already looking bleak.
In school, it’s a lose-lose situation. Teachers either use and approve of AI or have completely lost trust in their students, and the students themselves are torn between learning how to use the new technology or avoiding it entirely. It’s an overall concerning situation, with a future that is undeniably distressing.
