At the beginning of every class this quarter, all of my professors gave long speeches about using AI in their classes. For almost all of them, their stance boiled down to, “You can use it, but you can’t write a paper on it, so you have to cite it.”
When I hear this, I wonder how I got here.
AI has cast a shadow over my entire college experience. Many of the major AI models, such as Chat GPT, were first released in 2022 when I first saw them. Now you can’t even do a Google search without unwanted interruptions from AI, which is even built into our phones.
Many people may welcome the growing acceptance of AI, but I’m not one of them. It seems like you only focus on the flaws. AI models can be biased against marginalized groups, disrupt artists and creative industries, and have a huge impact on the environment. All of those things concern me. But what I’m more concerned about is how it’s affecting our critical thinking skills.
It’s easy to rely on AI for simple tasks like writing emails. However, if you do that, you will not be practicing communication techniques. Are we going to use AI to write emails forever? Most people write emails every day at work. Is that your life?
Many of my classmates are finding valuable uses for AI in school. I’ve heard people use it to find sources, proofread papers, and summarize articles. I understand that, but these are time-consuming tasks, and college is a busy time. However, Seattle University has many research librarians who can help you find sources and are happy to help. We also have a writing center, which provides all the support your fellow students need to write and edit their papers. And with America’s literacy rate declining, is it really a bad thing to actually take the time to read papers and exercise your brain?
There are many resources on campus for professors to teach me, but some in my class encourage me to rely on AI. Universities are places that foster learning and should teach students how to think critically. The fact that so many people are becoming comfortable using AI is doing students a disservice.
You don’t want to be told to use AI to find sources or help you write your paper. I want to be told the best strategies for doing so and where to find resources to help. Why should I pay for a college degree if I’m not actually learning anything?
One of the most important skills employers look for is critical thinking. If we continue down this path of using AI, students will be deprived of one of the most important skills for getting a job. AI may not yet take our jobs, but it might if we don’t learn to think for ourselves. The only people who will get jobs are those who can think better than AI, or at least add value.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one in the crowd who doesn’t want to continue on the path toward an AI-centric society. My classes and professors certainly think that way. Even if you believe there is value in learning how to use AI to keep up with the job market, students will be at a disadvantage if they only learn shortcuts. Professors are the ones who should teach us how to think critically. If they too are turning to AI, how can students learn these all-important critical thinking skills?
With professors constantly pushing us towards AI, I hope my fellow students will be able to understand that they are missing out. We all invest a lot of time and money into education. You have to be upset that our school only wants ChatGPT questions.
That’s why I say stop telling us to use AI in university classes. Even if it takes time, I want to train my brain to avoid all the pitfalls of AI. Where can you learn how to think better than AI outside of a university classroom?
