As technology gets more advanced the usage of AI has increased and improved. All across the globe AI is helping to make many advancements in all different fields. These tools help make jobs easier. It is important to note that Artificial Intelligence is different from any other technology due to the rate at which it evolves at. Just a few years ago AI was way less powerful, and teens have watched AI become relevant in their day to day lives in just the recent years. At Blind Brook, most students don’t have a very strong opinion on how they feel about AI. Some students believe that the rise in access to these resources makes students lazier and prevents them from learning and doing their work. Others feel as though it will make a lot of stuff obsolete but in a good way. They believe that using AI as a resource for things can allow other resources to be used for more advancements.
Something all students can agree on is that there need to be restrictions when it comes to AI usage. It can be easy for students to abuse this resource. For example in classes where assignments, like essays, need to be written a student could go into an AI program and not need to write an original work. This is why assignments must have plagiarism checks. Using AI as a way to avoid doing actual work causes the student to not learn which is the whole point of going to school. The same students who believe that AI isn’t good for education also understand how it can be used as a great tool. For example, freshman Michelle Tian explained that she has only ever used AI to get “ photos or idea inspiration” This way she still completes the project using original work, but the workload was lessened. Using AI as a tool is a valuable thing to learn, AI isn’t going anywhere and is only going to become more prevalent, learning how to use your resources while still doing original work is key.
If AI becomes an even bigger part of education many students would be upset, however a few students thought that it would be better. High schoolers have a lot of academic work to do and many also have extracurriculars like sports, or clubs that they need to work hard on. Being able to use AI more, might allow students to balance all their responsibilities easier. On the other hand, students like junior Josh Fitzpatrick think, “If I can just ask a bot for an answer, then there’s no point in learning or taking tests.” Many students would feel cheated out of their experience as students since very few people would choose to do their work if the option of having AI do it for them was on the table.
For the most part, the students of Blind Brook believe that AI can be a good tool that should be used. With the condition that there are restrictions in place to avoid cheating, plagiarism, and unoriginal work. AI should be a tool for inspiration, learning, and organization; other uses of AI that include using plagiarized work are an abuse of technology and not only violate academic integrity, but they also take learning experiences away from students. AI, when mindfully used, could be a great tool to integrate into classrooms as it continues to rise in the ranks of school technology.