As students, we are often pressured under a deadline. Whether it is a 3000-word essay due at 11:59 p.m. or a dreadful assignment requiring hours of hard effort, striving for good grades tends to require the sacrifice of time and freedom. This statement was the hard truth for many students and perfectionists alike, until a magic tool called ChatGPT was introduced to the public for the first time in 2022. Now, at a single prompt requesting a five-paragraph essay for a certain topic, artificial intelligence is able to generate a nuanced, stylistic academic paper in a matter of seconds. With no surprise, most of my teachers and professors condemned ChatGPT when it was first introduced. How are educators meant to test for critical thinking, when students could tell artificial intelligence to think for them? To students, however, many saw the increase in access to instant feedback and convenience as an enhancement to their scholastic experience.
The truth is that artificial intelligence is no longer a concept that scholars can pretend doesn’t exist. Some universities, like Stanford University and the University of Michigan, have tackled the contention head on by directly addressing and modifying their policies to better accommodate students with the rise of artificial intelligence. The goal of these programs is for students to effectively utilize artificial intelligence to help them succeed. However, at a school like LMC, where there are free tutoring services for STEM and humanities majors alike, there is no need for assistance from artificial intelligence any more than what the college provides.
The big problem with artificial intelligence isn’t just academic dishonesty, it contributes to a lack of critical thinking and the hard work from students required to complete assignments on their own. According to an article from MIT addressing AI hallucination and bias, “AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini have been found to provide users with fabricated data that appears authentic.” Even if this data was authentic, fabricated sources made by the AI could contribute to an increase in academic plagiarism and dishonesty due to improper citation.
Generative AI tools often base their data on what has been posted on the internet. Since these generative models mimic patterns in their training data without discerning truth, they can reproduce any falsehoods or biases present in that data (Weise & Metz, 2023). Biased information and misinformation alike could be spread even farther if students were allowed to use artificial intelligence for their assignments, even if it’s solely just for research.
Just a few years from now, we will encounter technological advancements within this industry that we wouldn’t even be able to comprehend. Given this, users must approach AI outputs with a critical eye and evaluate them with human judgement (Silberg & Manyika, 2019). For now, however, students should consider what really is at stake the next time they decide to use artificial intelligence for their assignment.
