By Jacinto Caballero-George
The rise of AI and how it has improved to be more human-like, making it easier for students to cheat and plagiarize in the classroom is a big topic of discussion. How much cheating has risen with AI and ChatGPT isn’t easy to find. Some places like Forbes says it has increased by as much at 89%, New York Times saying 58%, or places like CNN and Informa Australia saying it has not increased cheating and plagiarism at all.
Even if cheating hasn’t increased, it has objectively made it easier to cheat and plagiarize. Alexander Davidson, an English teacher at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School, expressed his opinion on students copying AI written essays by saying, “It will count as plagiarism because it’s not their original thought—a computer wrote it for them.”
Davidson goes on expressing his fear of how you cannot properly track AI usage. “If there is no way to track it, do we even bother with an essay anymore?” He said, suggesting students would not write essays anymore if AI could simply do it for them.
On the other hand, AI could help students learn and study. If you ask ChatGPT to give you sources for an essay or a research project, it will usually give you good and reputable sources. If a student needs extra help on a subject, ChatGPT could help by giving instructions on the topic or even help students study for tests. ChatGPT could even help a student format an essay, so they could get better at it themselves long-term.
In a Walden University article listing pros and cons, the second listed con is inaccurate data, saying, “The data that AI draws from may have errors, be outdated, or spread misinformation.”
Walden University voiced concern on how even when students are using AI to get information or sources to help with school work, it could still hurt their ability to grow as a student.
Later in the article, Walden University did mention that using AI has helped teachers, helping them form quizzes, lesson plans, create project ideas, and helped by doing more tedious parts of their job. However, many still think AI’s negative impacts outweigh the positive impacts.
Mobile Guardian says, “AI algorithms can perpetuate existing biases present in the data they’re trained on. This can lead to unequal learning experiences, to the detriment of students from certain backgrounds. Without a discerning approach to this matter, AI tools may continue to propagate these tendencies.” These biases are often overlooked, despite how important this topic is. Unequal learning opportunities have been a problem all over the world for years. The last thing the world needs right now is another imbalance in the educational system.
AI has the ability to change the educational system in ways never thought possible. However, AI is a very new thing that has a lot of kinks to work out before the majority of its impacts are positive. AI in schools, as of now, isn’t used as it was intended. Until it is used in the educational system as intended, schools should ban or at least monitor AI use.
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