Students Are Using AI Software To Write Their Essays, And Schools Aren’t Having It

The Bridge: We promise we’re not obsessed with AI – but it’s taken another step that we couldn’t ignore. More specifically: into the world of higher education. 📜👩‍🎓 With college students bogged down in assignments and extracurriculars, some of them have found a clever (and morally dubious) workaround: using Artificial Intelligence to write their papers for them, shaving precious hours from their workload. But are these methods appropriate? And will the institutions draw a line in the sand? Even more interestingly – will they be able to stop it, even if they want to?

Busywork ✍️

It’s no secret that college students are inundated with assignments, not all of them relevant to their major of choice.

Enter AI:

Rather than slog through lengthy word counts on their own, these kids are using machine learning systems to do the “busywork” for them. There are some undeniable positives to this technique, similar to how a calculator could help someone quickly solve complex math problems:

The AI can help them to come up with ideas, and structure their thoughts in a more coherent way.

It can also check for grammar and spelling errors, saving the student time and effort.

The tool may even be able to do research on the topic faster than the student could, meaning they would have more time to focus on other aspects of their paper.

The Downsides 👎

There are some repercussions for students using AI to write their assignments. The student may not get full credit for the assignment if it’s clear that they didn’t write it themselves. Not only that, but the student may have difficulty understanding the material if they rely too heavily on AI to do their work for them.

Not to mention if the use of AI becomes widespread among students, it could devalue degrees from colleges and universities – as employers may question whether graduates can really write well on their own.

And while not exactly plagiarism, the thoughts that emerge from this machine are not the students’ own. So where does this land on the scale from cheating to making use of a handy tool?

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Was this article written with the help of an AI?

You may never know…

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