As time passes, we evolve and so does everything around us. Technology continues to advance and we continue to live with it daily, except, how can we when students depend on AI more than their own brains.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is taking our jobs, using most of our freshwater resources, and slowly making us “dumber” as time goes by. It’s used frequently by students, teachers, social media, and so on. We need to learn how to use AI in a healthy way without depending on it.

A Sophomore student, who wishes to remain anonymous, mentions using AI multiple times. They used it due to simply feeling lazy, but also because, “sometimes AI really helps me understand the subject and its matter.”

They understand how this could affect student education, as they just want the answers. But, they see this as another opportunity for students to learn more and for them to understand what they are being taught.

Senior students, who are anonymous, had trouble working on an assignment and didn’t understand what they were being asked for.

They used AI because they wanted to understand more about the question and how too get it done better. “Basically to expand more on like what they are asking me and maybe get tips on how to get done better”

These students want more help understanding what to do or having a more indepth questions in order to be able to understand what they are being asked.

These students show how AI can be used in a productive and helpful way for them to expand their knowledge and understanding.

Geometry teacher, Ana Ozornio, thinks AI is helpful to an extent. “It’s okay if they use it to support their learning and its okay to use it to check their learning, it is uncomfortable when they rely heavily on it.”  

Ozornio believes using AI the entire time makes it smarter and causes us to depend even more on it. 

“It’s like helping their grade, like, sure they can pass the class, but it’s not helping their brain. Like, they’re not challenging themselves, they’re not learning anything.”

She says that it not only affects the students, but the teachers as well. “Now the teacher has to fill in all those gaps that they should have already learned and we expected them to, but it was AI who helped them cheat their way through the class.”

While Ozornio sees AI as a negative tool, Algebra teacher William Dawson believes that its useful as a productive tool. He sees it as a way to help us with researching information and better learning.

“One, I’m learning about AI myself, so I’m not a professional in understanding AI. I understand that it can help you research information on the Internet, so that could be a good thing.”

Dawson thinks that in order to avoid or stop students from taking advantage of AI, they should teach students how to use it beforehand. 

“We’d want to teach students in preparation of understanding AI so that they are able to make good decisions, especially when it comes to their career choice.”

As much as this affects Math, it’s also a problem in English classes as well. Mary Stoner, who teaches English and AVID, says she really has no problem with it, as long as it is being used as a way to guide themselves positively. 

She sees students use it as an overall support system or a way of getting out of work. She doesn’t want this to get in the way of their thinking, instead for them to try it themselves.

“When you give the power over to AI of what you can do, what you can think and what you can say rather than creating it yourself, you’re taking the chance to learn and critically think and develop ideas and be imaginative and creative away from yourselves.” said Stoner.

Small things like fixing small writing, expanding your idea, and refining work is something Stoner thinks is a great use of AI, only as a tool.

AI gets in the way of that and it blocks their ideas and makes them become more dependent on it.

With this conclusion, is AI becoming a good thing or is it a bad thing? And should we continue using AI or should we stop?

“I hope, hopefully humans could use AI in a productive and positive manner,” said Dawson. “And I know there might be some things that, can scare us against it, but we can just wait and see.”