Through recent years, technology has risen to new heights; giving us many helpful and efficient ways of completing tasks and communicating with the world around us. However, there has been a rise in the use of Artificial Intelligence, or AI. While AI has taken its place firmly in the world around us, integrating itself into businesses and social media, it’s taken a toll on one thing in particular: education – or more specifically, writing.

The arguments

Many are split in-between using and not using AI for their schoolwork and personal issues, as AI brings many benefits and issues with every use. For TCHS teachers Alexis Fiaccone and Zachary Richards, teaching can become a struggle as AI rises and students begin to rely on it.

“I have directly caught and disciplined around eight students on major grade assignments this school year,” Fiaccone said. “I have caught around 15 students on minor grades, but have seen what I believe to be AI work much more than that.”

Fiaccone speaks on the fears students may have as they complete their work. “I’m concerned that students, out of a fear of getting things wrong and feeling shame, turn to AI to be ‘sure’ in their answers. The issue is that, through being wrong, you are able to learn and grow in your critical thinking skills.”

English class is a prime example of how AI is being used in the classroom. 

“In English class, most of what we ask you to do is critically think and respond to texts in speaking and writing,” Fiaccone explains. “When AI is misused, turning to it as a replacement of their critical thinking, they are missing crucial practice for the real world. Critical thinking is, at the end of the day, one of the key skills that you come to school to learn. It doesn’t matter if you are going to college, entering the workforce, or going into the military, you need to be able to critically think in order to be successful.”

On the other hand, there are still those who use AI as a helpful tool for personal and work life.

“To me, AI is a great daily organizer for inside the workplace and personally. As a tool, it has allowed me to streamline the ‘dirty work’ of sluggish technology,” Richards said. “Files, rosters, weird text documents and everything in between can be cleaned and sorted by AI in seconds, the same process that used to take hours.”

However, he also recognizes the effects it can have on the mind.

“It has been incredibly harmful for both media literacy and critical thinking! I’ve noticed from my heavy AI use students that they cannot think for themselves. It is one thing to use AI as a tool, but horribly negative if used as a substitute for a pulse.” He said.

Richards was a part of the first class in LISD to receive iPads, and he acknowledged the abuse of new technology on school work and personal wellbeing. “[They] abused the technology just like they are doing with AI; cheating, plagiarism and summarizing apps led to the same literacy and critical thinking issues students have now.”

He also explains the issue with combining technology with bad habits. “[That’s] the key concept from this, because some of my highest-level students study and manipulate AI to help their thinking process and gain concepts that I don’t believe any non-AI user at 14-years-old could conceive.”

Like Fiaccone, Richards is also a teacher in the Humanities sector of academics, teaching Journalism and advising the Yearbook. “[AI] is not important to writing whatsoever and is harmful to the entirety of writing overall. In reference to journalistic ventures, poems and books, AI has no place. Writing in this form is founded upon expression, independence, vulnerability and honesty. When you take the writer away from the pen, you have nothing.”

The solution

When asked for a solution, Fiaccone answered that, “AI as a concept isn’t going anywhere, so the most important thing is to open conversations about the potential pitfalls of AI. We need to educate our students on when AI use is appropriate and when it is not in academic spaces.”

Richards also speaks on a solution as well. “Everything, whether new or old, needs moderation and stability, even though I know the shortcomings of AI, I believe in the aggressive future refinement of it, as well.”

AI in the classroom has both its strengths and weaknesses, but it’s important to know when it’s the right time to use it. With the multiple AI platforms rising in popularity, there is hope for the future of regulations and refinement for academic integrity.