Why I Don’t Like Artificial Intelligence: And It’s Probably for the Exact Reasons You Would Think

Now, this may not be the most popular opinion among many of my fellow students, but I think that artificial intelligence is an extremely harmful thing for many students across the world. First, let me start by saying, I don’t like AI in general, but I am aware of its benefits to those who are doing groundbreaking work in certain things such as folks using AI to decode old Mesopotamian texts and translate them into English. That’s super cool! I also see its benefit in automating certain types of computer science and technical issues such as coding and finding bugs in software. But, more generally speaking, I think that it is a danger to society, especially in education.  

Artificial intelligence is quite a tempting offer when you can pump out a five-page essay in seconds and use rewording to make it appear as your own. But have you stopped to think about the fact that there may be a reason your professors are making you write that paper, read that book, or solve that problem (shout out to stem people your stuff is a whole different story)? Using AI basically makes it so you can cut corners and learn nothing from whatever class you’re taking. And while we all don’t want to be reading that boring ass book the professor you don’t even like is assigning you, sometimes, you may actually use the things you learn from said class that you hate in future classes. It’s the whole idea of compounding information throughout your time at school; not only use the knowledge for future classes, but also in your professional life. I hate to say it, but if you go to work at a company and you try to give them something written by AI or solved and pass it on as your own, I can’t say that they will do as our professors do and give you no credit or scold you, but they may just realize that if AI can do it, why do they need you?  

I also will argue that, in many ways, you’re cheating yourself. I know that at times it can be annoying doing something for a class that you don’t even like, but guess what, someone’s paying for that. You made the decision to come to school, and you, your family, or somebody else is paying for your education. You may realize when you’re paying off the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debts that you may have wanted to pay attention in that statistics class, or maybe actually writing that econ essay may have taught you how to deal with the current roadblock you’re experiencing at your company. And I know that I sound like as asshole for writing this in this tone, but it’s honestly annoying. I hate to say it but when you work with people in groups and realize you can’t do anything because you’ve learned nothing, nobody likes working with you!  

Another thing I will say is that yes, sometimes AI can be useful, you want something further explained to you? AI can tell you and dumb it down, but sometimes what’s even worse is it’s not even accurate!  AI resources such as ChatGPT rely on a MASSIVE data pool, from across academic institutions to random chatrooms on the internet. IT WILL NOT BE RIGHT ALL THE TIME. So, you have to fact check it, but half the time we as students don’t even do that, and that just makes it even worse.  

Last point I’m going to make is that watching a professor give back an essay that you wrote and have them tell you that it was made by AI, and you cheated, is one of the most annoying things to experience as a student. Those AI checkers they use are not 100 percent accurate and that can be seen by the countless people I know that have been told an essay they wrote wasn’t theirs even though I watched them work on it in front of my very eyes. This wouldn’t be a problem if we just stopped using it, but unfortunately, I fear that its use is now inevitable, and we are doomed to be dumbed by it.