AI in higher education

AI is a dangerous tool that has very interesting implications for higher learning. For starters, I think AI has the effect of making students less intelligent and stopping many people from using their critical thinking skills and research gathering skills. I think this is mostly because of how easy Ai is to use. When a student who is not a particularly good writer is on a time crunch for an assignment, it will always seem like an easier option if you just ask Chat Gpt or another AI website for an answer. It takes no time at all and sometimes it’s even accurate and truthful.  The problem is just that when you outsource your thinking to a website, your sense of critical thinking and problem-solving skills diminish. It’s the same thing that happens when you don’t work out a muscle and it shrinks. As a journalism major and an award-winning writer, I do not feel that temptation because I believe I am a better writer than Chat GPT, and I would not use a tool that will just mimic something I am good at to a lesser degree. I think AI also stops students from being able to do real research. Going through different sources and finding information yourself is something that really helps students and researchers find out more about a topic. For a lot of my classes when I write and report on something, I am required to find multiple sources so that I can confirm pieces of information. However, if I were to simply ask Chat GPT to find different sources for me and summarize them, I would have to completely trust the AI and their information analyzation strategies. Overall, I think that AI is a tool that allows its users to dull their critical thinking skills, as it is essentially a crutch that takes away from being able to think for yourself.