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The same thing cannot be said for many in our nation’s schools.

For millennia, schools have been places where students can gain knowledge and skills useful in the real world. Education has become necessary for skills that range from basic math to performing open-heart surgery. However, assuming that a degree-holding professional has the intangibles his diploma suggests may no longer be a safe option.

In 2022, ChatGPT exploded onto the scene as a free chatbot that could answer virtually any prompt you could think to ask. That was also about the same time I stepped onto a college campus as a freshman. Growing up, I had gone to school in an environment where you didn’t cut corners, and you certainly didn’t cheat. In fact, in most cases, successfully getting away with cheating in a classroom took more effort than simply doing the work itself. I had to learn and do everything essentially the way I was supposed to, and while I may not have breezed through the entire time, my academic wherewithal at least set me up for success in college.

That entire expectation changed during the spring of my freshman year, and ChatGPT was everywhere. As kids, we were taught that plagiarism warranted serious consequences, but that meant taking another person’s work and claiming it as your own. Taking a machine’s work was technically fair game. It became more morally acceptable. Using AI to cheat in classes became rampant and widespread, with few consequences.

The negative consequences of AI in the classroom became instantly clear. College students were breezing through without really learning anything. The more tangible skills they would have learned in almost any other era, like time management, learning methods, and even just basic work ethic, were thrown out the window.

A quote from one high school English teacher put it very well: “For students learning to process information, find their voices, and demonstrate their understanding of the world, the ability to cut corners is catastrophic. Shortcuts are incompatible with learning.”

Professors would preach the dangers of AI to mostly deaf ears. One such professor told me that in this current environment, you are essentially competing with AI for jobs. If you can’t do what you do better than AI, then your career in that field is gone. That stuck with me.

Furthermore, at least people my age got through high school without the cheating pandemic. The generation following mine was exposed to AI at a much younger age, likely hampering their development. Instead of learning integrity and work ethic, these children will learn to cut corners and outsource effort.

Implementing uncontrolled AI in grade-school classrooms will lead to catastrophic results. It could end up creating a generation of people who graduate from high school, college, and even graduate school without the first clue about anything they should have learned in those places.

Naturally, after reading all of that, one would jump to the conclusion that artificial intelligence is evil, which couldn’t be further from the truth. AI is a revolutionary invention with near-limitless potential. If harnessed correctly, it could truly unlock the next era of major human innovation. But for that to happen, we need to ensure this technology doesn’t compromise our most vulnerable.

Like just about everything else, children must be taught how to use AI before they abuse it. We can’t afford to have those destined to be our best and brightest hurting themselves by replacing actual learning with dependence on a machine. We must find a way to utilize AI without it hampering students’ learning in other areas of academia. We must treat cheating as a morally reprehensible act, and its consequences must serve as an effective deterrent.

Artificial intelligence is a wonderful invention, but it could be dangerous or damaging in the wrong hands. Therefore, we need to keep AI away from those who are learning, so they can once again develop the skills they need to succeed in life.

https://patriotpost.us/articles/1000697-ai-is-a-tool-not-a-solution