Humans have always been concerned about the capabilities of computers, and that’s no surprise. In a world where finding a job is hard enough on its own, the last thing anyone wants to do is try to compete against a robot. The machinization of a variety of factory jobs can show us that much, replacing human labor with giant steel arms and conveyor belts.
All this isn’t to say that humans didn’t recover from that particular crisis. Where mechanical labor took over, it created its own field of computer science, generating a whole new wave of jobs to replace the positions it assumed. More nerds were allowed the opportunity to embrace their hobbies, and for everyone else the world became a place where education, news, and social connection were more accessible than ever before.
So, problem solved, right? Not exactly.
It seems that we find ourselves in the same predicament again, although this time the enemy is somehow more all-encompassing and at the same time harder to notice. It should be obvious that the opponent in this scenario is AI. While AI provides free labor in arts, research, and medicine, it simultaneously puts many people out of jobs. Teens share more of their feelings with chatbots than their own parents. The apocalyptic scenarios stretch in front of us as far as the eye can see. While I believe that the cons outweigh the pros in almost every category, one makes a better case for itself than any other. Can AI be an educational tool?
“I do not believe that there is a place for AI in an educational space.” says Dante, a Lakeside sophomore who can proudly say that he has never used AI for an assignment. Obviously, most schools are nowhere near the point of replacing human teachers with AI models. But unfortunately, some students are already starting that process for themselves. “They (his peers) tend to go to AI sources like Chat GPT or Meta AI to not only complete their work, but to answer genuine questions that they have.”Dante is talking about more than a couple friends. In fact, while 51% of students acknowledge that using AI is cheating, 22% use it anyways. That’s one in five. If we apply that statistic to our own student body, we can see that at least 484 Lakeside students use AI to complete their classwork. Despite all this, AI is not the end of the world. What matters is what you use it for and how you use it.
“It helps with that lesson planning and getting some ideas, especially for my ESOL class. When it comes to developing activities for English learners to try to break things down and simplify them, it (AI) certainly helps.” That’s Mr. Bokelman, a history teacher at Lakeside, and his view is a little more optimistic than Dante’s. “We’re still getting a sense of what do we need to do as teachers to really utilize AI to its benefit, but to also limit it to prevent things from completely getting out of hand.”
Maybe AI isn’t really that bad. It’s possible that we as a society have to establish social norms in regards to it, the same way we had to for machine labor. One thing I can confidently say is that using AI isn’t getting anyone a 5 on any AP test.
