ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Does It Matter if ChatGPT Is Short Circuiting Learning?

Cheating, thinking, and the future of education in the AI age.

Embedded expertise? Photo of and by author

“Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College” is worried about what AI cheating is doing to college students. Educators are having a harder time distinguishing AI writing from human and are worried that reliance on AI hinders the development of critical thinking, writing, and problem-solving skills.

Not so many years ago, other educators, and perhaps some of the current crop, were up in arms about the use of electronic calculators in math classes.

Should any of the current people wailing about AI read the two paragraphs above, they might huff loudly, puff out their chests, and proclaim “That is HARDLY the same thing!”

But it is the same thing. Exactly the same thing.

AI has its faults. So did Henry Ford’s Model T, but things have changed a bit, haven’t they? AI will become more reliable and, more importantly, will become ubiquitous. Eventually, it might even be a brain implant, but even now, AR glasses powered by AI are not far away.

I think most of us agree that we can learn math more easily and more deeply if we use a calculator. What I would have…