Does AI Limit Learning?

An essay that would normally take six hours can now be generated by a student in what’s closer to six minutes. It sounds convenient, but is it ethical? 

The usage of generative AI is certain to change the online landscape forever, but whether we welcome it in the educational one or not has become a hot topic within the last few years, eliciting some very contrasting reactions.

If you’ve been on the internet at all within the last couple of years, you’re probably familiar with the rapid increase in AI generated content. This development has made its way into school, with many students now using popular generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT to complete homework assignments. Naturally, the application of AI to schoolwork has sparked quite the debate: is the use of AI simply keeping up with the times and utilizing a helpful online tool, or an unethical method of cheating that robs people of creativity, or, can we find a middle ground?

Ms. Nugent, an English teacher at New Hartford High School is worried about students using AI for work. Her highest concern, she emphasized to me in our conversation, was that students may replace valuable skill-building with having AI complete their projects, unintentionally preventing themselves from a proper learning experience. While she does believe AI can be utilized as a productivity tool, Ms. Nugent told me that it is important to understand how the AI is getting its answers and learning from its process rather than just running with its answers with no deeper thought, as it may prevent the growth of lateral thinking.

“The product of your education is your mind; it’s not the essay, not the project, not the lab. It’s the unique mind that is produced when you do that work,” Ms. Nugent said.

The reason students go to school is to gain authentic knowledge and expertise that will prepare us to achieve success and thrive in our careers. In the future, knowing how to use AI properly will likely be one of those abilities, but in the meantime it’s in the student’s best interest to do the required work ourselves and fully absorb the content at hand. Especially when it comes to writing essays, making yourself read and interpret the sources to give a thoughtful analysis is valuable for picking up critical thinking skills.

Some sources believe there are benefits to using AI in education. Learning how to navigate this new technology to assist grading, academic planning and studying can be viewed as its own beneficial ability even if it is different than doing it on your own accord.

According to Maria Radeva, who works at the University of Leeds, “With the assistance of ChatGPT, teachers can design and integrate interactive classroom activities to enhance their pedagogical practices. For example, ChatGPT can create visual aids, such as presentations and worksheets, lesson plans and other educational resources. This can encourage teachers to deliver more dynamic and captivating lessons to meet students’ learning needs.” 

Like Radeva, many people believe that AI can generate lesson plans for teachers or study guides for students, viewing it as employing AI to aid education and give a push in the right direction rather than only fabricating inauthentic pieces of work.

Her article also touches on some risks of using AI for projects, including the fact that AI will sometimes offer unreliable information. If you don’t fact check every bit of data generated by the chatbot, you could end up sharing inaccurate facts and misinforming the reader.

I sat down outside with my friend Giovanna “Gigi” Gonzalez, looking for a student’s perspective on the matter. Gonzalez is a sophomore at the high school. I was interested to hear the viewpoints of both a teacher and a student, and was surprised to find how similar their opinions on the subject are. My friend also believes there is one ethical way to apply AI in school.

“I use AI to help improve my vocabulary and structure of my writing assignments by putting it through Grammarly and finding which better words I can use,” Gonzalez said.

The student believes AI can be helpful in refining the grammar of an assignment, but feels the opposite about having it completely write an assignment. She explained to me that she does not believe there is a scenario in school where having AI write full sentences for you is ethical.

Sharing a similar sentiment with my conversation with Ms. Nugent, Gonzalez expressed her issue with generative AI in homework.

“Work being inauthentic,” she said, “and kids not putting forth the most effort they can to learn what they need from the class” are problems Gonzalez acknowledged.

Gonzalez also said that it’s better to create your own study resources, as writing up a study guide can be part of the studying process in itself and have a more useful effect in the long run.

Personally, I think it’s favorable to have restrictions on AI in academic material. It’s important to me that I absorb the information I need from school so I’m prepared for college, so I don’t use AI– nor would I recommend using it to other students. Nevertheless, as a student myself it becomes easier to see from the perspective of students who have used AI for essays when it’s 10 PM and I remember I have one due the next morning. While I can appreciate the appeal of a convenient shortcut for work, I naturally have my ethical qualms with AI mimicking human intellectual property as someone with an interest in creative writing and art. Writing — following an original stream of thoughts and putting it to words– seems to me like something uniquely and inherently human, so a computer turning a creative act into a simple code of recycled data collected from real writers is off-putting to me. 

Though I myself prefer not to, I can see how for some there may be a gray area when it comes to maneuvering generative AI as a tool for organizing resources for studying or planning, especially considering the fact that this technological development seems to only be increasing in prevalence and will likely be integrated into our educations and careers in the future anyway. Learning how to use AI in a way that is professional and not a replacement for hard work could be valuable, and I hope this can be achieved while still preserving genuine learning and creativity.

Currently, my two cents are that it serves students better to generally avoid any AI for assignments unless it is specifically encouraged to use it. Smaller uses like Grammarly can be helpful, but when it comes to outlining or writing essays, answering questions, analyzing information and other assignments that require your own thoughts and interpretations, work should not be plagiarized using AI. Consistently having AI like ChatGPT do your work only decreases the value of your education, weakening your capability to understand things for yourself and improve your critical thinking and literacy.