We have all heard of artificial intelligence, also known as AI. The topic about AI has recently increased these past two years. At first it didn’t seem harmful and was an underground topic. In more current times AI has been shown as something bad for many reasons, the main one being about schools. AI gives students the opportunity to cheat, ultimately declining their critical thinking skills.
The issue of AI is something that needs to be more talked about to raise awareness. Any student can have easy access to the internet where these apps take place. Such as ChatGPT, Gauth, and Photo Math. Even Snapchat AI that was recently added to the app. In many students’ eyes they see it as the “tool” that will help them complete their assignments to achieve good grades. That’s not the case, it makes students lazy. It gives students the thought that they don’t need to interact with the teacher for help, knowing they have an app to do everything for them. Not only that but AI isn’t always right. Many students don’t even read the answer AI gives them, they simply just copy it.
So while they think it’s helping them, it’s actually not. Often teachers can catch the use of AI within school work, leading them to give the student a zero as their grade. These are just some of the many reasons on how AI is hurting students, rather than helping them.
Schools, teachers, counselors, and any adult working in the education department knows the harm of AI, but how do students feel about it? I interviewed Valeria Valdez who is a current senior student at Saugus High School. She expressed her thoughts about the use of AI, and the ways it has been brought up in school. She shared, “the mention of AI has been present in every class and syllabus. It’s almost always mentioned in a negative way”. However, she believes AI shouldn’t be banned due to a couple reasons. Valeria said, “I don’t believe AI should be banned completely in schools. Since AI can benefit teachers and students, I think it should be used sparingly and appropriately”. While there are many reasons as to why AI is bad in classrooms, students often see the good side of it. Valeria vocalized, “For me ai is helpful when I need help brainstorming ideas or need help getting started on an assignment. The negatives come when students use ai to completely plagiarize assignments, specifically essays.”
There are many aspects on how AI is damaging to our schools. There are steps we can take to slowly but surely fix this problem. Before anything it’s important to realize students will try to find a way to use AI as long as all those apps still work. We can take this into consideration and find ways to ensure effective learning. Schools can attempt to enforce a strict policy to control how students use AI. The ultimate goal is to help students learn the right way and use their own skills to learn efficiently.
