We have all heard of Artificial Intelligence, the advanced tool that most students use to help answer tedious math problems or generate essay ideas from, but have you ever wondered how much time you truly spend on ChatGPT? Our generation has become so absorbed and fixated on always depending on the internet for help that we are slowly losing sapience on the simplest things. You take out your math homework and immediately pull out Gauthmath or another form of AI without stopping to even attempt the problem.
We have become so reliant on technology that we have completely lost critical thinking skills. What happened to original ideas or intellectual conversations? You may not realize it, but we are slowly rotting our brains. If you think that’s a reach, research has shown that if you walk into a middle school and ask a child to tell you the summary of a short story, they often can’t even do that. Our use of the internet as adolescents is hindering us from being able to think freely on our own and is slowing down our brain development.
AI isn’t just affecting us students but it is also affecting our environment. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst, training an AI robot can take up about 620,000 pounds of CO2. The use of AI is not just affecting our cognitive abilities, but is worsening our environment. E-waste has surpassed 120 million metric tonnes and is releasing hazardous chemicals into our atmosphere. The climate is slowly deteriorating and AI is one of the many reasons for it.
Many students use AI as a tool to enhance their learning rather than allowing it to complete all the work for them. One 11th grader explained, “I only use AI for history because I always second guess my answers then just give up, so I use a little bit of AI to help me not actually do the work for me.” Although there are positives that do come with AI the negatives continue to outweigh the positives.
Students may use AI to help explain problems or help with creating schedules but let’s not forget about the majority of students you don’t just use AI for “help” but use it as their own personal assistant. College students online touch on how heavily they use AI and how they struggle to live without it. It’s important to realize that although AI enhances our abilities short-term, in the long run it is detrimentally harming our abilities.
To put into perspective the impact of AI, it is important to understand the amount of college students pursuing medicine who use these Artificial Intelligence websites in their education. These students will eventually assist us in the hospital, but how will they be self-sufficient when they use AI as a continuous crutch? Although it’s become a joke online, there are students graduating college after using AI for the majority of their assignments. AI is not just present in schools, it’s a source that applies to everyone even outside of school. Some college professors will use it to help grade papers, and often adults use it to answer emails and create schedules.
Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool, capable of assisting humans in incredible ways. Yet, if used incorrectly or too frequently, it can rapidly result in an unhealthy overdependence, posing a serious threat for our future.
