Innovative artificial intelligence offers students a way out of writing essays, doing homework, and everyday work.
But it comes at the cost of replacing student credibility and creativity.
Platforms such as ChatGPT have been debated all over the country for their surprising results when used for homework assignments, advice, and even college application essays.
AI has gotten exponentially smarter, becoming more useful over the years. Now it’s being called the “calculator for writing” as students develop their dependence on AI for dishonestly completing homework and writing essays with work that is not their own.
This was discovered when software was used to analyze text features and revealed patterns such as the frequency of words used and fluency of an essay. Inconsistencies such as sudden changes in writing style can indicate that the work belongs to AI.
Students only allow themselves to see AI as an innovative technology that should be normalized and improved. The fact is that the use of AI in this manner is academically dishonest and a cheap way toward the completion of assignments.
Overwhelmed students may be eager to rely on this option instead of doing their own work.
Students have taken shortcuts on schoolwork using the internet before, but AI platforms such as ChatGPT knowingly and purposely hurt students for the platform’s own gain. AI platforms don’t care that what they’re doing is making students reliant on cheating and deceit.
Because this is mostly overlooked by students, tech companies such as Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT, which is becoming synonomous with academic dishonesty because of how students are using it to complete both homework and essays.
While it takes a student days or even weeks to write an essay, Forbes found out that AI such as ChatGPT and Jasper AI can have each essay written in less than 10 minutes.
School-related stress can easily take over a student’s life, making it hard to dedicate time to extracurriculars, social life, or family.
While using AI may be an easy tool for alleviating academic stress, cheating and plagiarism are still clear violations of academic ethics. Grades should be based on students’ work only, not the work of a computer system.
Additionally, AI brings the integrity of college admissions into play. Students could use AI to write college essays for them, a large factor in the admissions process. College essays are meant to provide insight into a student’s passions outside of the classroom, and give a better oversight of what kind of person the applicant is.
Even though computer-generated work may pass as a student’s work, they’ll be punished for violation of the honor code if they’re caught, which can result in suspension or expulsion.
According to BestColleges, a website that helps students find colleges that fit their goals, college acceptance can be rescinded at any time if it is discovered that the essays and grades submitted weren’t the student’s original work.
Additionally, having to differentiate between student and AI writing is a burden that teachers shouldn’t have to take on. The job of a teacher is hard enough without them having to determine whether students are fabricating their work. An additional grading procedure to see whether if a student’s work was produced by AI should not be another caution to take when students could simply avoid this kind of cheating.
Reliance on AI also causes students to lose imagination and creative thinking since a tool like this can take the place of academic creativity with just the touch of a button.
The world is getting more and more reliant on AI. Although it can be especially convenient for students as an easy way out of honestly doing schoolwork, cheating and a replacement of student creativity is a larger price to pay.