You are 15 years old, in your sophomore year, and you think you know that you are going to learn the same things over and over for the next two years. Sitting in class, you don’t see the point in going through and answering questions you will never use. You open your phone to ChatGPT, take a picture, and immediately get all the answers to the questions. You can’t help thinking, ‘Why do my teachers think this is so bad, if I’m answering the questions correctly?’ AI is a part of many students’ lives right now, and that’s only assumed to progress.
You see AI on many different apps on your phone, but not all the AI you see is the same. Tens of thousands of mobile apps use AI. There are two types of AI, language learning and generative. Generative AI is the type of AI where the main function is to generate content; Photoshop or Adobe. Large language models are the type of AI that deals with language based functions; Duolingo or Google. Some AI is multifunctional, like ChatGPT or Gemini, where you can talk to it or have it generate images.
Every type of AI is found in the classroom. Additionally, there’s a push for teachers to teach AI in the classroom. Students having an education on how to properly use AI is important to the U.S Department of Education. In their recommendations book from May of 2023, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning,Insights and Recommendations”, it states three reasons why AI should be addressed immediately. Their reasons are as follows: First, AI may enable achieving educational priorities in better ways, at scale, and with lower costs. Second, urgency and importance arise through awareness of system-level risks and anxiety about potential future risks. Third, urgency arises because of the scale of possible unintended or unexpected consequences.
Zach Berry, digital media and photography teacher, says, “It’s kind of being shoved in our faces all over the place. And the way that technology develops over time, there will be a time when it will be completely unavoidable.” He continues, “I think there is a way for us to kind of control the narrative as long as we get out in front of it.”
Berry explained his views on AI, saying, “I do use AI in my personal life but not in my classroom.“ Berry continues to explain, “In my classroom, I feel like AI does too much of the work for you. I think you have to learn the hard way to do things before the easy way.” In his personal life, he utilizes AI as a “glorified calculator”, where you provides the information for AI to synthesize.
On the other hand, Rio Polidori, a business and accounting teacher, finds AI to be a valuable resource for teaching and learning. Rio says, “I use AI to help me come up with ideas when I teach. I teach my students how to use AI ethically.” They follow this by explaining that if an English teacher were to ask their students for 10 sources, Polidoi then teaches them to use AI to find the sources. The student’s duty would then be to revise those sources, an ethical way to use AI.
Still, Polidori recognizes how AI could be conflicting,”I do, I think students see it as a way to do their work without having to think whether it’s art, whether it’s writing in an assignment, right? They always go, ‘I’m just gonna ask AI copy and paste,’ and that’s unethical, and it’s plagiarism.”
The difference between a teacher using AI and a student using AI seems to be in the way in which you use it. Neither of the teachers really seem to be completely against AI, just the improper use of it. Your teachers are teaching you how to use AI ethically. What does plagiarism mean in the context of AI? What counts as plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work or ideas without giving proper credit or attribution. If you were to cite that you are using AI in your assignment, it wouldn’t be plagiarism because you are giving credit to the AI. If you aren’t supposed to be using AI and try to hide it, then it would be plagiarism. Commonly, you aren’t allowed to use AI, making it plagiarism.
Polidori explains how AI is a beneficial tool for them as a teacher. “When I use it as a teacher, it helps me. It cuts down my time right, so it helps me prepare better, lesson preparedness.”
Senior Bob Smith (real name withheld) shares how they use AI. “I use ChatGPT, Google, and AI on Snapchat in class to learn new things and get a better understanding of things in class. In my personal life, I use them to diagnose me medically and to break up with my boyfriend.” He was slightly joking about the use of AI in his personal life but people have been known for doing this. Smith says they see AI as both good and bad because, “to an extent it’s good but overusing it (AI) is bad and using it in a bad way is bad.” Smith explained how someone might use AI in a bad way, using the examples of fraud or using someone’s face without consent.
People who have a strong “relationship” with their AI, using it for things like breaking up with their partner or using it to talk to instead of a friend, can be described as having a parasocial relationship with their AI. Berry explains a parasocial relationship, “(parasocial relationship) is a one-sided relationship. ChatGPT is a robot; it doesn’t have feelings, it doesn’t have thoughts or ideas. It is essentially a program that tells you what you want to hear.” Berry guesses that people are gaining these dependencies to avoid conflict. Berry even mentions people have been developing these parasocial relationships with ChatGPT to the point that they had to program in precautions. One of these precautions is to reduce the AI’s conversational kindness.
Smith named the pros and cons they see with AI. In the cons, they included AI taking over the world if it gets too advanced, and the fear of people using AI for everything they won’t learn properly. On the pros list, they say AI is a good teacher, it’s fun to use, and trends on TikTok using CapCut are fun.
You might have seen one AI TikTok trend using CapCut’s AI to turn you into a cartoon character using your picture. AI gets the pictures to have that cool effect by taking work from unpaid artists and mashing it together. This is a cool way to get professional-looking art of yourself, but what happens to the artist of the art the AI uses?
Artists who rely on commissions to make money for their art are losing money with this trend. NBC News covered this story: Viral AI-made art trends are making artists even more worried about their futures. They state how artists are struggling with the AI CapCut trends. “The proliferation of AI-made art does ultimately take a toll on many artists.”
Berry is very transparent that generative AI is a big no in Berry’s book. “The type of AI I hate is generative AI.” He explained,“I understand the drive to do things you can’t typically do. Like if you can’t draw: a long time ago, if you couldn’t draw but wanted to draw, what you would do is practice.”
By taking away the drive to do better, Berry says,”It’s a detriment to humanity as a whole. Because we only got to where we are today because people wanted to be a little bit better than the people who came before us, right?”
Polidori hopes that one day there will be a class on AI to use AI ethically. This is because of how little knowledge we have on AI right now: rules, precautions, etc. Polidori also says that AI will open job opportunities because it is just a machine. It will always have flaws.
The final takeaway for today is that AI is scary and a vulnerable resource that is often and easily abused. You may be able to see how AI could go bad, and your teachers do, too. To best use AI without harming yourself or your grades, use AI ethically. We must look for a way to move forward with AI because it isn’t going away.
