It’s been hours, and the pile of homework on the desk has not gotten any smaller. While a quick string of text on an app could easily do one hour worth of work in an instant, a predicament of integrity and information accuracy ensues. As Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs rapidly develop and reshape everything in society, excitement, fear, curiosity, and concerns arise as the question of AI’s place in education is interrogated.
“AI is wonderful if you want to ask for help on questions you’re struggling on,” Aisha Syed (11) said. “It’s when people start to use it to cheat that it’s harmful.”
With the launch of the popular AI platform ChatGPT in 2022, AI programs have exploded in popularity, becoming accessible to many new users. According to the Pew Research Center, one in five adults use ChatGPT. According to a survey from the Digital Education Council, an organization focused on education technology, 54% of students use AI weekly, and 24% daily.
“I try my best to stay away from AI but on occasion I’ve asked ChatGPT for help,” Syed said. “AI is helpful in many ways and people should use it for help.”
AI’s place in the classroom is very controversial. Sociology and psychology teacher Mackenzie Moore argues that while AI can be a useful tool for overworked teachers, there’s not enough information to be confident on how exactly to use it.
“AI is already changing the way that schools works even though there is simply not enough knowledge about AI to use it ethically,” Moore said. “I’ve used it very seldomly to create a rubric with a project that I’ve already created but I don’t think teachers should allow AI in the classroom as of now.”
Other teachers argue that AI can be a very useful tool for certain tasks, potentially allowing them to focus on things they find more important.
“AI is great for brainstorming and generating topic ideas or essay structures,” English teacher Kristina Hernandez said. “These are things that I am already skilled at so AI is time-saving tool that allows me to focus on other important tasks.”
Even if there was a consensus on how AI should be used, regulating AI is very complicated. One student expressed their frustration because school laptops block websites which use AI. As AI is integrated into more websites, this problem could become amplified, blurring the line on the websites that are be blocked, and the reasoning behind it.
“So many websites get blocked because of this,” Syed said. “On many occasions I have wanted to use a specific website for research but it ends up being blocked.”
Others are concerned about that an over-reliance on AI could lessen other student’s performance and ability to learn. According to Digital Education Council, around 85% of students use AI for studying.
“AI has generally increased the lack of integrity in students and made them more prone to disregard fine language and arts,” Amalia Mendoza (12) said. “It’s sloth handed on a silver platter to people with no integrity.”
The name Artificial Intelligence may give people a misleading image of how these programs work. ChatGPT, OpenAI, and DeepSeek are Large Language Models, meaning apps that create text based on what the user asks it about. By searching large databases that they’ve been trained on, these programs try to predict text and adjust for context and coherency, not too different from a phone’s grammar auto-corrector, except much more advanced. Because these programs only look through their databases, which are made by collecting information through the internet, it means that often the information they present may not be fully accurate.
“Many students rely on ChatGPT and other programs to write even the most simplistic responses,” Moore said. “People are relying on technology instead of their own reasoning skills.”
Others argue that while AI is not very good for learning new skills, it can be an important tool for being productive when it’s used for less important tasks.
“The key is understanding the difference between ethical use and cheating,” said Hernandez. “If you’re no longer engaging your own critical thinking then AI transitions from a helpful tool to something that could hinder your growth and future success.”
Exactly how AI should be handled remains a topic which people have strong opinions on, but what they can agree on is that it’s a powerful tool. As this new technology is improved and updated, the question of how it should be managed in the classroom continues to become more and more pressing.