Wren Reinholz: Using artificial intelligence in classrooms should not be considered bad

To The Daily Sun,

If you have seen a student finishing up their essay recently, you may have noticed something new. Many students are taking liberties they haven’t had before, and teachers are not happy. With AI becoming more and more prevalent in today’s classrooms one question is seemingly more common: “How bad can it be?”

The answer to that question depends on what you think “bad” is (I’m not a fan of semantics). The facts are pretty simple. AI is being used more frequently, and there needs to be a line of what it should offer classrooms. I draw this line after the use goes from inspiring to uninspiring. Wired’s Article, “ChatGPT is Unoriginal — and Exactly What Humans Need,” goes through a simple study: They presented a moral problem to students, and later compared their answers to chatbot answers. These answers were systematically identical, which is sort of ironic.

Why would we ban students from using AI in classrooms if it gives you the exact same answers?

The students later wanted to prove themselves, so they came up with more fun and human answers; these answers were something to be proud of and stand behind.

I just want this liberty. Using artificial intelligence in classrooms should not be considered bad, just because it can give you answers, it should be rather antithetical: considered useful. If AI can give you a baseline, inspire you, and lead to more problems being solved, I see it in my classrooms’ future.

Wren Reinholz

Gilford