The world is grappling with what to do with and about artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence provides a computer program with the ability to think and learn on its own.
Currently AI comes in two varieties: weak AI and strong AI. Super strong AI has not been invented yet.
AI can aide in a variety of tasks like helping a student with an essay or research paper or helping a teacher come up with lesson plans.
Science teacher Alex Jacobs said that AI can be very useful when coming up with new ideas in education.
“I use AI because sometimes AI presents ideas that I couldn’t think about myself,” Jacobs said. “It’s a good starting point for educators coming up with curriculum.”
Not only is AI beneficial for educators, but also for students when it comes to academic work.
“I think It is a good starting point for students to use AI if they wanted to get some initial research and go get the source material,” Jacobs said. “After that AI isn’t exactly good source material, but it is a good starting point for your work like research.”
Chat GPT is often used by educators like speech teacher Savanna Winn when it comes to prompt ideas and other objectives relating to her classes.
“I use Chat GPT to create lessons,” Winn said. “So instead of having to go and painstakingly figure out each part of the lesson, Chat GPT creates it for you. Then you can go in and tweak it as you go, so you don’t have to start from scratch. It kind of helps you come up with ideas. I’ve also used it a lot for my speech and debate and helping us coming up with prompts. I’ve let the debaters use it for practice with one another.”
One danger posed by the use of AI is the loss of critical thinking skills. Students try to take advantage of AI to not only boost their work but to completely form it.
“I use AI for my English essays because I’m not good with coming up with stories or topics,” one junior said. “I just tweak some words that sound more like me so they won’t catch me cheating.”
One issue with AI is bias. AI generators are only as fair as the humans who input information. Therefore, all AI comes with preconceived biases which are then transferred into the information generated by them.
AI has began so popular colleges like the University of Texas at San Antonio has begun building a college centered on AI.
The benefits of AI are accessibility, engagement, diversity and innovation. The downsides are problems with accuracy, ethics, dependency and addiction.
According to LearningSol, a site for continuous professional development, the solutions to problems with AI lie in educating people about Ai, regulating with rules and guidelines and balancing the use of AI with methods of learning.
“AI has been used a lot lately like for art, English, science or companies coming up with logos or product ideas related to them,” one junior said. “Honestly I feel like one day we will only run on AI and rely on it for nearly everything, to the point where we can’t do things for ourselves any more.”
