The Impact of Artificial Intelligence: Part Two: A Students Perspective By: Brett Briggeman

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become one of the most controversial topics of our time. Many look at this technology with excitement and intrigue, believing that it will help usher us into a new age of progress and success. Others look at AI and are extremely skeptical as to its benefit to humanity or believe that it poses a serious risk to modern society. 

Last week, professors at Hardin-Simmons University (HSU) presented their personal opinions on AI, as well as how they believe it impacts academia and student engagement as a whole. This article will focus on the perspective that students, such as myself, have towards AI. 

Firstly, we have to accept that there are many benefits to AI. Much of our society and how things work are now run through the use of AI, including certain processes within academia such as advertising, social media, schedule planning, registration and much more. However, we also have to accept that there is a darker side to AI when it comes to academia. This technology opens the door to students relying on AI generated responses for assignments, leading to a decrease in true student engagement, information retention and academic integrity. 

Abbey Pardue, a senior business administration major from Lubbock, focused on how much AI had impacted her thought processing abilities.

“Truthfully, I am not the world’s biggest fan of AI,” Pardue said. “I used to use it for much of my schoolwork, such as proofreading essays and teaching me how to solve math problems. However, something I noticed the more I used it was how much I began to lose critical thinking skills. When given a math problem to solve, instead of trying to work out what formulas and equations to use, I would immediately ask ChatGPT to teach me what formulas to use. This has caused me to lose a lot of mental strength in the area of critical thinking.”

Pardue believes that AI can have a detrimental impact on students.

“I believe AI impacts student engagement mostly in a negative manner,” Pardue said. “Why would we spend time activating our already-busy brains doing hours of work that can be done by our computers in seconds? This was once my way of thinking. However, I would never learn material by asking a robot to compute things for me. AI, if left unchecked, can lead to a significant decrease in human wisdom and knowledge. When I was using AI for every assignment, I completely lacked originality and creativity in my classes. I became lazy and instead of sharing my thoughts with professors, I was sharing what AI was thinking, disguised in my own words.”

Pardue also shared that she believes AI will have a negative impact on academia as a whole.

“I believe AI is a very real, intense threat to academia,” Pardue said. “While it can be helpful in some circumstances, it is as if we are subconsciously trying to replace human knowledge and connection with robotic information. How can we progress in life if something else is thinking and working for us?”

Pardue does however share that she believes that AI will never be able to completely replace what makes us human.

“AI will never replace the intricacies and complexities of human thought and emotion that are found in art, literature, music and other things that facilitate human connection.” 

I am a junior at HSU, with a double major of Christian studies and history. I am also minoring in worship leadership and honors. The vast majority of my coursework depends on written thought, essays, notetaking, etc. The use of AI within my courses of study would genuinely diminish the learning experience as well as restrict how much I am actually able to internalize and apply later on. 

While I have used AI in the past for assignments, I have never used it to do the assignment for me. When used as a tool to help organize thoughts, outline essays, or even help format papers and bibliographies, it is extremely useful. When used to do the assignment itself, it becomes a crutch and counterintuitive to why we go to college in the first place. 

We have to find a balance as students and faculty when it comes to AI. It is not going away any time soon and has genuinely become part of our society as a whole. It is up to us to find the happy medium, the middle ground where we can use AI for good purposes, not abusing it and making it do all the work for us.