Considering how much post-secondary costs, I’m surprised at the risks some students take in jeopardizing their future. However, it’s not uncommon to hear about someone using ChatGPT to bypass actual work for convenience and a passing grade.
Maybe it’s because I’m 33, but the idea of using ChatGPT to create any of my work feels like I’m cheaping out or selling myself short. If your goal for a post-secondary education is just to scrape by with passing grades, you’re missing the point.
College is a time for discovering who you are, what you believe in, and how you want to proceed in life. Of course, we’ll change paths too many times to count, but that’s how we learn, grow, and discover who we want to be. But using ChatGPT isn’t going to get you where you want to go and isn’t going to give you a sense of self from the thoughts swirling around your head, because those thoughts will turn stagnant if you rely on AI to do the work for you. So why risk academic penalty for the sake of ease?
Original thoughts are so hard to come by these days. We complain about all the remakes of movies, lamenting that there are no original ideas left in Hollywood. The use of ChatGPT will likely contribute to a lack of creative and original ideas in the world. There have been so many classes I’ve taken that didn’t appear of interest to me, but because I immersed myself into the curriculum and used my own thoughts to propel arguments, I learnt things about myself and my potential career opportunities I would have never discovered if I phoned it in… or AI-ed it in.
Personally, I wouldn’t want to risk using ChatGPT in any of my work and chance a failing grade, legal action, or it haunting me throughout my entire career, feeling like I didn’t deserve my degree. I expect more from myself, as we all should. Using AI instead of your own ideas is robbing the world of unique and inventive opinions and theories. Without the progression of ideas, the world becomes immobile in advancements.
Now, we all sometimes struggle to get thoughts flowing to start writing a paper, but that’s why we have teachers, classmates, and others in our life. You’d be surprised by how helpful outside sources such as family members or friends can be once you start talking their ear off about the essay you have to write. Others’ ideas often help spark our own, giving way to novel thoughts that ignite our creative candle and propel our fingers across the keyboard.
The satisfaction you’ll feel from creating something original will be greater than the indolent hours you spend after using ChatGPT to do the work for you.
As a fellow student, I’m much more interested in what you have to say than an AI that creates more intelligent ideas than those using it.