By Viviana Gardner, Stentorian Staff Writer
With the rapid rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage, it seems as if it is on track to become a central part of how we live. The things that AI has been able to generate have ranged from answers to simple problems to realistic images and videos–proving itself to be a rather effective and engaging tool. However, many schools have begun to ban the use of AI in all schoolwork.
In my opinion, I believe that banning AI usage in schools is extremely counterproductive. It has been proven time and time again that simply banning something will not stop the problem, so how do we fix it? Simple! You remove the notion that AI is the problem altogether.
By vilifying AI usage in the school system, we restrict the possibilities that it could bring to education. When students are having issues comprehending a topic, they can ask for a breakdown of it and ask for practice questions. Not only can this tool build understanding, but it can also act as a good starting point for large projects with the finding of sources surrounding their topic or for brainstorming topics themselves.
With that being said, AI is not always the best for everything: it can make mistakes, give misinformation, or just be unable to help you with what you need. Even though AI itself is evolving and getting better, it does not prevent itself from making errors that need to be taken into account. Considering this, we also need to discuss the restrictions that need to be put into place to prevent students from abusing this tool. Requiring students to report their AI usage and/or the prompts they used may restrict students from using the system to cheat or plagiarize.
Although this will not remove the chance that students will cheat, it will allow for transparency between the teacher and student on the use of AI and let students see the benefits of AI for themselves as it is reflected in their schoolwork. To further combat the usage of AI to cheat, there have been websites and other AI tools that can check for AI usage. Taking the pros and the cons into account, I still firmly believe that despite the possible misuse or errors the program may bring, the use of AI is something that can benefit students if used correctly and responsibly.