The concept of AI is becoming more and more prevalent in our lives, and subsequently in our classrooms. Every time you read, look at, or even hear something you have to ask yourself whether it’s real or AI. This extends to the classroom, and it’s affecting every single teacher and student. As the months go by, AI is getting more difficult to recognize. Some people may say that this is a good thing, and in some ways it can be. On the other hand, AI can limit students’ creativity and learning. 

According to The Center on Reinventing Public Education, ~60% of teachers have used AI to help aid in teaching. But even though this is true, the majority of teachers seem to have a negative opinion towards it. Even though AI can be a helpful resource, it can also be more hassle than it’s worth. Teachers report that even though they have used AI for creating worksheets, they often have to go back to check and ensure that the information is accurate– and unsurprisingly, sometimes it is not. 

But this isn’t the only reason that most teachers dislike AI. Most students can admit that at one point or another, they’ve been tempted to use AI for our schoolwork. This adds another layer of proofing that they have to go through when checking work. But this isn’t only harmful to teachers. AI is detrimental to students’ creativity because it doesn’t allow them to come up with ideas on their own. Instead they lean on resources like ChatGPT as a crutch, even going so far as to generate entire essays and assignments. 

There are lots of other reasons that AI can be harmful in a learning environment. AI isn’t real intelligence– it’s artificial. If students are being surrounded by AI resources instead of legitimate ones, there’s a higher chance that they’ll be led astray by a wrong fact or a misleading interpretation. 

However, there are also instances when AI can be helpful and make life easier for everyone. Many AI powered classrooms are designed for a specific subject, therefore they are less likely to get the facts wrong. These make it easy to ask questions and get quick answers when a teacher isn’t able to help you or you’re struggling with homework.

Even though AI has been shown to be damaging students’ creativity, in some cases it can also boost it. It’s often difficult to get started on something from an entirely blank page. AI makes it so much easier to get your foot in the door and start something when prompted to give you ideas. It’s not always easy to come up with ideas, especially as sleep deprived high school students, and AI is an easily accessible tool to help us get started.

Another thing that AI is great at is creating beautiful artwork. Many students have used AI to create images and graphics for presentations and assignments when there are no other pictures that fit your specific design. But there is also a problem with this type of AI generation. It doesn’t just make art from scratch, like any other AI program, it needs to take things from other places on the internet. Because of this, art from around the internet is being stolen by AI to ‘create’ art. 

There are many positives and negatives regarding AI, and in the end it’s up to each of us to decide how– or if– to use it.