Natalia Dithrich

Imagine having limitless knowledge at your fingertips. Having the ability to access any published thought or idea known to man with a few taps on a screen. Sounds amazing, right? The crazy thing is, you already have it. Every smartphone or laptop in the world has the capability to connect to the Internet, which is an infinite source of information. This is just one example of how artificial intelligence has integrated into our society. AI has become so prominent in our daily lives that we don’t fully realize just how advanced it is. For example, it could write an entire essay or a report with only a few sentences on the topic. It could find all of the answers to your homework assignment without any real effort being made. These examples are used to emphasize just how easy it is for a modern-day student to cheat their way through high school. One could quite effortlessly use their phone to do every single assignment their entire high school career. What does this mean for the future of education? Will students continue on their days without having to put in any major effort in any of their classes? With these unanswered questions and uncertainties, a teacher can have no accurate way of evaluating what is student work and what was done by AI. Cheating is just too easy to do nowadays that we have to call into question if artificial intelligence is inhibiting an actual education. For better or worse, AI is not going away anytime soon, so schools need to find a way to adapt. 

To really be able to understand the functionality of artificial intelligence, some background must be provided. The first mentions of the possibility of AI date all the way back to the 50’s. One person specifically explored the prospect of AI, a man named Alan Turing. Turing came up with the idea that if a human could take available information and use it for decision-making, then so could a machine. Of course, his idea could not be so easily converted into physical form. A conference, hosted by John Mcarthy and Marvin Minsky was held 5 years later to discuss artificial intelligence. The meeting determined that AI was achievable, but the methods behind actually building it were left undecided. Although there was much left unknown regarding AI, that didn’t stop scientists from trying. Early computer prototypes excelled for about the next 20 years. Multiple projects thrived with newfound government funding, but the idea was still in its early stages and had many years to go. By the late 70s, it was found that computers couldn’t handle all the data necessary to make their own decisions and could not process it fast enough to do anything substantial. The idea lost a majority of its funding and sent AI years back in development. This, of course, did not stop scientists from continuing the work. In fact, with the lack of funding and support, AI flourished in the 90s and 2000s. In 1997 a computer was able to beat the world champion of chess, Gary Kasparov, at his own game. Then came more and more breakthroughs, including Moore’s Law, which states that every year the speed and memory of a computer doubles, making the storage problems from previous years moot (Anyoha 2017). This brings us to today, where AI is almost everywhere and is constantly advancing. After almost 80 years of struggle, we have a fairly operational AI system worldwide. It’s come a long way since the 50s but there is always room for improvement; the world will always be progressing, so we have to keep moving forward with it. 

AI is all well and good, but how has it affected our education system? After all, less than 30 years ago a student would have to look up information in a book at a library when we can now find it with a few taps from our fingers. It certainly makes life easier to have the whole internet in the palms of our hands. But has this new information highway really just increased laziness and compliance? With so many sources from all over the world, it would take all of a few seconds to have a machine do your work for you. How is a teacher supposed to differentiate your words from those of an AI? “Resources” such as the AI ChatGPT make it easy for a student to get out of any real work. One could have their entire essay written for them in seconds, knowing absolutely nothing about the subject other than its name. “I do think it’s unethical and an academic violation to use AI to write paragraphs because academic work is all about original writing,” says Lise Howard, professor at Georgetown University (Peritz 2022). In using a program to write your words for you, you take away the words’ authenticity and in turn their power. But then one has to take into consideration the student’s argument. That AI is just a tool or a starting point for their work and that the assignment is still distinct to them. After all, that’s what AI was made for, right? To make difficult tasks easier. We just have to decide where to draw the line for AI. Is editing a pre-written article slightly and turning it in as your own a timesaver, or is it plagiarism? 

Let’s take a second to examine the full abilities our AI resources have. Just a few months ago Snapchat released an AI chatbot of their own, called My AI, that is able to write human-like responses to not only questions but also photos. Since Snapchat has a largely teenage audience, My AI is mostly used by adolescents. Snapchat states, “Content shared with My AI, including your location if you’ve shared that with Snapchat, will be used by My AI to provide relevant and useful responses to your requests, including nearby place recommendations. Your data may also be used by Snap to improve Snap’s product and personalize your experience, including ads” (Snapchat 2023). This means that My AI collects information such as your location or interests and has the ability to use that information in their responses. Many teenagers also don’t understand that this is a huge privacy risk and that anything that one shares with this bot will no longer be personal. While Snapchat claims that none of this data is used outside the app, they could really do anything with that information. Then there are the mental and social health issues that come along with talking to a fake friend. My AI provides real conversation and support when you need it, but at some point, it becomes hard to differentiate between reality and fantasy, especially for young minds that are still in the development process. One might try to replace a child’s necessary social interaction with a robot. Without real conversation with real people teens are left feeling isolated and alone. (Childnet, 2023) If your only friend is a robot, how are you supposed to function in the real world after high school? How are you supposed to know how to interact with actual people in your everyday life? These are just a few of the concerns related to My AI, and while it may be fun and entertaining to some, it could be detrimental to others.

Now obviously, the companies that create chatbots are completely on board with AI, but who else supports it? Who else wants the various robotic creations that have artificial intelligence to thrive? As of now, the US government backs AI and even goes so far as to say it’s the future. Secretary of State, Anthony J. Blinken states, “A global technology revolution is now underway. The world’s leading powers are racing to develop and deploy new technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum computing that could shape everything about our lives – from where we get energy, to how we do our jobs, to how wars are fought. We want America to maintain our scientific and technological edge, because it’s critical to us thriving in the 21st century economy” (U.S. Department of State 2023). Blicken calls AI a “Revolution,” something that changes our way of life indefinitely. These human-like robots could quite possibly make us reevaluate the world as we know it. The question is, for better or worse? Will AI be our generation’s future or our own undoing? How will schools cope with this new technology aiding cheating teens? Only time will find a way to answer these questions, but until then, we need to take into consideration the impact AI currently holds over our youth. 

All that being said, who is against the industrialization of artificial intelligence? Well, there are millions of US citizens who are concerned about a robot-filled future, the most well-known being Elon Musk. In mid-March, Musk and about a thousand other successful researchers and engineering company heads (such as Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, and Rachel Bronson, the president of the bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) came together to write an “open letter.” This letter pushes for AI developers to shut down production until the risks and consequences of artificial intelligence are precisely determined. They state all of this under the reasoning that AI tools have “profound risks to society and humanity” (Metz et al. 2023). So while the government backs this new technology the actual developers and companies express their concerns. Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization, puts it like this: “AI developers are ‘locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict or reliably control,’” (Metz et al. 2023) With so many uncertainties regarding AI’s further development, of course, these highly intelligent minds have concerns. It’s not only harmful to teens but to the future of our world. This is why many are taking action, some more strongly than others, to take a step back from this all-out sprint to produce new AI technologies. This is not to say that we should scrap artificial intelligence altogether because it is a highly useful asset, we just need to take more time to fully understand AI and its potential risks before we go all in with it. 

With the future of AI being uncertain, many carry worries about what lies ahead in these uneasy times. The least we can do is protect our youth from the dangers AI presents. Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of our time, but is it therefore without faults? With the possible social and mental effects on today’s teens, are resources like ChatGPT and My AI really worth it? Should we give students the tools they need to effectively cheat their way through their high school career? Do we allow AI to access private information from unsuspecting teenagers who just want to use social media or look something up online? It’s impossible to tell what’s going to happen next and one can spend their entire lives waiting and worrying about the future, but right now, at this very moment in time, we can address and prevent the negative effects of AI on adolescents. So regardless of age, we need to reassess the use of AI in our lives and really ask ourselves, is artificial intelligence your ally or your enemy? 

Natalia Dithrich is a junior and a writer for Valley Unveiled. She participates in multiple clubs at such as debate club, drama club, interact club, select choir, Mathletes, travel club, and SADD. She hopes to pursue a career in psychology and enjoys reading and baking.

References

Anyoha, Rockwell. 2020. “The History of Artificial Intelligence.” Science in the News, April 23. sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-artificial-intelligence/. 

Isaac. (2023a, May 25). Snapchat’s new AI chatbot and its impact on young people. Childnet. https://www.childnet.com/blog/snapchats-new-ai-chatbot-and-its-impact-on-young-people/ 

Metz, Cade, and Gregory Schmidt. 2023. “Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing ‘Profound Risks to Society.’” The New York Times, March 29. http://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-musk-risks.html. 

Peritz, Aki. 2022. “A Fun, Easy New Way for Students to Cheat.” Slate Magazine, September 6. slate.com/technology/2022/09/ai-students-writing-cheating-sudowrite.html. 

Snapchat. “My Ai – Snapchat Support.” Accessed November 27, 2023. help.snapchat.com/hc/en-us/sections/13532188353428-My-AI. 

U.S. Department of State. 2023 “Artificial Intelligence (AI) – United States Department of State.” June 21. http://www.state.gov/artificial-intelligence/.