As we all know, as students, we have had to sit through many, many, many long and, might I say, boring “lessons” on how to use AI. These torturous hours were made to educate us on the dos and don’ts of artificial intelligence. However, were these lessons counterintuitive? Personally, before coming to ISL, I never even thought of using AI; it just never came to mind.
So…honestly? Yeah, I think so.
When a school forces students to sit through endless “how to use AI responsibly” sessions, three things happen:
- They made AI waaaaay more interesting than it was before.
Nothing sparks a student’s curiosity more than adults saying, “Be careful”, “Don’t misuse this”, and “AI is powerful and dangerous”. To a teen’s brain, that automatically translates to “actually, this thing must be pretty cool.” Also, just by the way, if you tell us there’s an easier way to do something than logic says, that’s what we should do.
However, I may not be the best judge of whether AI use increased after these talks because I wasn’t at ISL before having these lectures. But for me at least, I never touched AI before the school put it right in front of me. The school basically created a marketing campaign for ChatGPT by showing us exactly what it can do, demonstrating all of its shortcuts, and giving us a step-by-step tutorial.
- They normalized the use of AI for everything.
They integrated it into our assignments, our projects, and even our research. The school unintentionally sent us the message that AI is just a part of everyday school life from now on. Keep in mind that if you give a student a tool to make school easier, faster, and less painful, it’s not really a surprise that they use it.
- They became hypocritical.
I don’t know about you guys, but I have seen teachers use a lot of AI…but hey, they were also told to use it. However, they then expect us to be AI-free. This is not me admitting to being an AI fein because I’m not, it’s just me pointing out the irony.
I don’t think the problem is or was teaching us about the existence of AI, because either way, we would’ve discovered it and started using it, and probably very incorrectly. I feel that the problem lies in teaching us the pros. AI destroys creativity, reduces critical thinking skills, and creates decreased self-confidence. So, in my mind, and I may be crazy for thinking this, AI’s positives are massively overshadowed by the possible consequences of its use. Sure, it’s fast, it’s easy, and it (sometimes) gives you a better understanding of a harder topic, but do you really want to throw away the very expensive education you are receiving because it can just do it for you?
I do realise that I am being incredibly critical, but from what I’ve seen, this is needed. Not only do the students currently doing the diploma programme risk losing diplomas, but younger years risk having lower education levels simply because they never built the techniques to learn because the cool robot did it for them.
So, do I believe that the school created this uproar in AI use? Sadly yes. But this doesn’t mean I believe they can’t fix it.