Why AI in Schools Needs to be Reined In
It’s just too easy to cheat
It’s that easy.
A recent opinion piece in The Toronto Star extolled the virtues of Artificial Intelligence (AI). “AI is changing how students learn, usually for the better,” the article purports. The author — a graduate student at the London School of Economics — explains his use of the tool to do everything from circumventing the drudgery of finding information through conventional university libraries to having it provide support regarding phrasing in essays and similar tasks.
In other words, ChatGPT and other AI programs are a boon to these digitally-native students.
“As a graduate student,” he writes, “ChatGPT is like having a personal research assistant. University libraries and online databases are exceptionally difficult to navigate, and at times, ChatGPT provides an elegant way to circumvent them.”
This perspective is simplistic at best and worrisome at worst.
Yes — Artificial Intelligence has a variety of uses and can definitely take on some of the more mundane and time-consuming tasks that are part of the university experience, graduate level or otherwise. It can indeed do a lot of the work for a student who’s overloaded with work, tight on time and hurtling at lightening speeds towards submission due dates. But how is this any different from a Google search, an activity that in the face of the rapid rise of AI, is seemingly becoming archaic by the day? Artificial Intelligence appears to be the next iteration of the now basic Google search, with AI offering many, many more parameters and results.
Is this a good thing?
Perhaps.
But upon further investigation, there are more considerations that may be perceived as questionable or downright problematic.
Artificial Intelligence appears to be the next iteration of the now basic Google search, with AI offering many, many more parameters and results.
As someone who teaches part-time at a college in Toronto, I have seen firsthand the range of problems that ChatGPT and similar AIs pose. At its core, it can be argued that Artificial Intelligence impedes the user’s ability to really understand what it is they are getting from its use. Look at it like this: it’s great to use a calculator to multiply large numbers, but shouldn’t one understand how to do it manually first, before taking the easy way out?
I know — this sounds like a version of “when I was a kid, I walked 20 miles to and from school every day,” but it’s not. The breadth of issues that will result from a reliance on AI technology is only now coming to the fore.
Without even venturing into the very real issues of copyright infringements, theft of intellectual property and ideas, and outright theft of others’ work in order to feed the AI machine, this technology at its core can and is leading us all down a very slippery slope.
Now don’t get me wrong.
I must reiterate here that there is a role for AI to play in our work, school and personal lives. As previously noted, it is a great tool that is able to take on the drudgery of many mundane tasks that would take up precious time that could be used otherwise. It’s also — by definition — very smart, and comes up with concepts, ideas and creativity that often extends beyond our abilities at any given time. We all know what it’s like being sleep-deprived, under the weather or just plain uninterested in certain tasks at hand, particularly ones that have a hard and rapidly approaching deadline. Personal or professional, Artificial Intelligence can take a load off. We all need a break now and then, after all.
What it can’t and shouldn’t do, however, is take the place of human-based outputs and ideas which far exceed the breadth and capacity of AI programming.
Sure — many would posit that AI is only as good as its programming but as many would also venture to say that we’re at a dangerous point in time where technology has the ability to overtake the human perspective.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist nor do I believe that this scenario is likely, but I do believe that turning a blind eye to the inevitable challenges that will continue to unfold because of AI will not end well for any of us. For basic research and for giving our creative ideas a boost, sure. It’s a no-brainer. For writing theses, assignments and similar under the guise of one’s own thoughts is problematic, and then some.
For basic research and for giving our creative ideas a boost, AI is a no-brainer. For writing theses, assignments and similar under the guise of one’s own thoughts is problematic, and then some.
Artificial Intelligence is indeed here to stay — that’s a fact. Now how we choose to use it is the uneasy question that we need to consider every time we write parameters into our chosen AI of choice, asking it to do the heavy lifting so we don’t have to.
