Post-secondary students rely too heavily on artificial intelligence. AI should not be doing the job a human can—and should—do.
I’ve witnessed Camosun College students go against the academic code of conduct and submit an assignment written by AI as their own work. Normally this would result in expulsion, but teachers don’t seem to notice, or care. This is because even some teachers are using AI to create their slide decks; the same people that express their fears about AI replacing our jobs are using it for their jobs. While I understand the convenience of using artificial intelligence, I do not understand the constant reliance on it.
I’m very against using AI tools for work assistance and writing—among other things—and something needs to be considered: AI does not always correct information. It simply wants to validate you and shower you with compliments and boost your self esteem.
Whether it’s writing an email or a term paper, using AI for a job that’s assigned to you is a bad look. It’s overused and people are too reliant on it for big projects. There can be extenuating circumstances—such as language barriers—that can be remedied by asking AI for help; however, if a person is willing to sit back and let AI do all their work, what are they actually doing?
In 2015, OpenAI, an organization that purportedly focused on advancing AI in a way that benefits humanity, was launched. This allowed people to make some difficult facets of their lives easier—for instance, using AI to figure out what to say to their partner in an argument. Using AI in situations like this will negatively impact humanity because eventually nobody will be able to think for themselves and every person will have to ChatGPT everything they do not understand.
I believe that originality is what makes us unique. It is the most important aspect of our humanity that separates people from artificial intelligence. Watching the cursor blink is a shared experience for all post-secondary students, whether or not they do their work and follow Camosun’s codes of conduct.
I believe the use of AI needs to be policed more by Camosun instructors, and I also firmly believe that some of the negative impacts of AI are already permeating our lives. Using ChatGPT to make a point in an academic environment shows that people are relying too heavily on AI in their studies. Original thoughts are soon going to be a novel thing because people will Google everything and read the AI overview just to have a point in their paper or a slide in a PowerPoint deck, and I fear that honest students will soon have to prove that they wrote their own essays and did their own research.If something doesn’t change, at some point we’re going to be frighteningly reliant on AI for just about everything.
The only thing I can say for sure right now is there was no AI used in the writing of this article, as it should be.