As AI continues to soar in popularity, students and educators are starting to take advantage of the technology. According to Forbes, more than 60% of educators around the U.S. have incorporated AI into their classrooms, and college professors are no exception.
Despite this, I was still surprised when AI use was permitted in my freshman-year writing course (WRS 105), specifically to write a paper’s introduction and conclusion.
While some of the world’s best minds have talked about AI’s massive potential for the future, AI does students a disservice and goes against the values of higher education in the classroom. AI can regress students’ writing and problem solving skills, especially when using it to complete papers and assignments.
For example, using AI to write an argumentative paper isn’t actually developing persuasive writing skills. Instead, students are relying on AI to form an argument, losing the ability to interpret text, research for themselves and form their own opinions.
As a freshman and someone who’s skeptical about ChatGPT, I was surprised that AI is allowed on some UM assignments. My confusion was partly because of the algorithm that AI uses, called transformers.
The transformers algorithm generates information similar to what a human can produce and responds with human-like language. This raises concerns about how easily AI can generate assignments and papers that resemble a student’s work and also makes it easy for students to use AI unethically.
While my WRS 105 syllabus says that students should use AI “appropriately and ethically” and “understand their limitations,” it is hard to justify AI use for a class like WRS 105.
The class is meant to improve students’ writing and communication skills, but using artificial intelligence to help write papers does the complete opposite. It removes the challenge of prompting students to think clearly and discuss ideas persuasively. Instead, chatbots, such as Chat GPT, do all the thinking and persuading for students.
A study published by Nature determined that AI “significantly impacts the loss of human decision-making and makes humans lazy.” With the increasing use of this technology, students are more susceptible to AI’s influences and are growing less concerned with conducting their own research.
When considering how technology-dependent people already are, do we really want to add more technology to the mix? According to Varsity College, social media usage has led to the rise of misinterpretation and misunderstanding between individuals both verbally and nonverbally.
The internet can also impact our memory. A study published by NIH concluded that dependence on search engines causes people to “have lower rates of recall.”
AI is a more extreme version of the search engines found on the internet, meaning it likely impacts our brains as well. School is a place where students should learn to think, but AI will only inhibit that.
Using AI in classrooms will hinder our abilities to understand readings and complete assignments ourselves. It can even impact how we behave and socialize as the more we use technology, the further we remove ourselves from human connection.
AI threatens the very essence and mission of our educational system. Despite AI’s convenience, its presence in the classroom will make us dependent on its insights and information. UM, it’s time to realize that AI isn’t going to facilitate students’ learning, instead it will hinder the way we think and interact as an institution.