The realm of technology and artificial intelligence has been changing rapidly with extreme developments in the past few years. Especially within the Silicon Valley, there are so many connections to various companies and individuals pioneering progress for the future. However, with such rapid successes comes the lack of regulation especially in regards to AI in education. Generally, if students use the resource as a complete substitute for proper learning and understanding, it can ultimately stunt their growth and problem solving abilities.
“I think we’re screwed in the long run,” said NDB math teacher Ricky Estrada, relaying a message of uncertainty in the newly developed technological features, but moreso, uncertainty in how AI is used in application.
Relying on the same overused ideas can also diminish creative abilities to find new outlets and solutions unique to each person. NDB religion teacher Dr. Helen Ciernick expresses that students relying heavily on AI are “leaving themselves open to manipulation and harm.” This is a concern to educators with students losing important skills that could leave them “at the mercy of people telling them what an article or book means,” as Ciernick stated.
Teaching and developing deep critical thinkers who have autonomy over their own thoughts and thus themselves not only develops individualism but also “is critical for the development of oneself and society as a whole,” said Ciernick, also noting that “Mental health experts cite loneliness as an epidemic problem in American society. … The rise of social media, online shopping and decline of clubs, religious membership and civic organizations account for part of this rise in loneliness. What little contact people have with others occurs when one is shopping, visiting the doctor and calling customer service.”
This holds true as a means of efficiency, since a student may be more inclined to ask a question directed towards ChatGPT rather than taking the time to meet with a teacher for whole understanding of a topic – missing the human connection but also the personalized explanation. People are not replaceable in all fields, and such fear of replacement is irrational as AI cannot build and maintain positive personal connections as well as a human being, even while it may be skilled in rewriting emails or checking homework answers.
However, some teachers have taken on the challenge of incorporating such developing technologies into their curriculum. Rushton Hurley, the teacher for Creative and Advanced Solutions classes as well as Design Led Innovation Director at Junipero Serra HS, sees AI and ChatGPT as “a phenomenal brainstorming tool,” seeing “tons of potential in it.”
In Hurley’s eyes, students are understanding material better through the use of this tool, not because they are replacing complex thoughts, but since they are building on their understanding of such complexities to form better intriguing ideas with greater depth. This is where a class, such as Creative Solutions, becomes valuable to teach students literacy in utilizing artificial intelligence to benefit rather than to replace learning.
Some classes may require a certain amount of ‘busy work,’ which students can be very tempted to utilize artificial intelligence to complete, especially if the goal is to complete the assignment in teaching themselves concepts. Looking into the near future, this also may be tempting to administrations from a financial standpoint – to replace low-functioning educators with robotic programmed devices if the two will be of same value to the students, since the latter comes at a much cheaper price. We see these kinds of robotic transformations in big businesses such as Amazon, where robots are starting to replace low level jobs sorting and moving items around. Technology will change education in the near future, but to the exact extent is still widely unknown. The option to replace educators with a robotic feature may even influence teachers to build a classroom environment based on discussion and deep thinking exercises, something a computer generated icon cannot replace.
Amidst an AP Biology lecture, NDB science teacher Rebecca Girard noted the difference in the past 20 years with developing technology. While life has become more efficient with developments of calculators, emails and artificial intelligence, we miss out on personal, human connection with contact through a screen. Even with maximized efficiency, does the extra time from the greater efficiency in simple tasks lead to more time for life outside of the work environment or does this efficiency lead to more time behind a screen for even more work at a much more rapid pace?
Overall, with AI growing so fast with various different applications, it is hard to balance the pros and cons across different subjects, occupations and titles. The overarching conclusion seems to be that there are many benefits to these growing technologies, but these benefits only stand when used carefully. While AI may be a great place to build off ideas and gain complexity, it is not a space for students to replace their learning with recycled, generated material. The growth of the skillset in a developing brain is so important that in the long run, this perceived efficiency of replacement really does not prove to be that efficient at all.
