Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot have revolutionized technology and its real-world applications. They can generate images, translate into dozens of languages, answer any question, and write just about anything you can think of. But this extreme versatility is exactly what makes it disruptive—and is exactly why it shouldn’t be used in schools.
One of the main reasons that AI is harmful in classes is that it hinders academic honesty.
“When students use AI in our class, it’s not just that they’re not ethically providing their own answers, which is a problem, but it’s akin to plagiarism, which has just really profound implications in the real world,” Cameron Tabatabaie, an AP World History teacher at Lexington High School, said.
Teachers are grading the quality of student work and the effort students put into their class, so when students use another source to do the work for them—whether it’s their friend’s homework or ChatGPT—it’s still plagiarism. It may be difficult for students to recognize the connection between ChatGPT and plagiarism, which is why it’s crucial to educate students on acceptable usage and the importance of original work.
Students also hold the false notion that AI is always accurate.
“I think some see it as a shortcut, an end-all-be-all. [But] one of the things that has come up is that it makes mistakes,” Shane Wilson, an AP U.S. History teacher at LHS, said.
AI learns how to generate text by drawing upon the internet’s treasure trove of written material. After it processes everything, from Facebook posts to academic journals, AI spits out the information it has absorbed. This haphazard process can prevent AI from being able to sift through misinformation—leading to generated answers riddled with mistakes. AI may save some time, but it definitely won’t save grades when teachers realize that none of the facts in their students’ essays are correct.
But most of all, AI disrupts the learning process. Wilson described how AI’s efficiency can prevent students from succeeding, especially in the context of his history class.
“In a meeting with the junior teachers, we wrote a [Junior Research Paper] (JRP) in fifteen minutes using an AI. [But] for me, the most important part of the JRP is not the final product. It’s the process,” Wilson said.
Sacrificing understanding for time can have significant long-term effects on learning. When students get into the habit of using AI writing instead of their own work, they lose the ability to practice their writing skills and develop an authentic style.
“You can go faster with AI, but then you’re not making those synapses connect where we’re talking about an analysis or I’m asking you to practice this structure that we’ve been working on and asking you to recall vocab. You’re taking the shortcut and that’s going to come back and bite you later,” Beckie Bray Rankin, a French teacher at LHS, said.
Right now, AI presents several challenges when it comes to learning information and essential writing skills. However, if used and regulated correctly, it could become commonplace in the classroom.
“I think acceptable use [of AI] is using it really just to brainstorm, and to get ideas down,” Eliza Epstein, a junior, said.
However, as AI chatbots continue to evolve at a rapid pace, the future of AI in education looks uncertain.
“[AI] is too new and technology’s changing too fast to really have a beat on what or how it will look in the next year or five years or ten years from now,” Tabatabaie said.
For now, AI’s unrestricted influence is more of a hindrance than a help to students, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s here to stay. As AI continues to develop, education will have to adapt. Some students have already begun to consider how schools can still teach and challenge students while mitigating the threat of AI.
“I think a part of learning is being able to do something, even if other things can do it, because it’s still important skills. I do think we’ll see a shift towards more creative projects and more applications of things we’re learning, because I know [for] AI, it will probably be harder to make a poster or write a song,” Epstein said.
In a high-pressure environment like LHS, it often feels like it’s impossible to keep up. But the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to AI. Artificial intelligence leads to artificial learning, and ultimately, AI is a reminder that efficiency shouldn’t exist at the expense of education.
