Gen-Z: Should artificial intelligence be used at school?

As someone who was recently in school and celebrating a year with my graduate degree, I’ve been really disappointed to see how generative AI has become so prevalent at the university level. While a problem everywhere, it is at that academic level where people learn the most valuable critical thinking and problem-solving skills, not be learned anywhere else.

In secondary schools as well though, the widespread use of large language models is having a negative effect, with youth and adolescents unmotivated and simply using these tools to accomplish what they know to be the goal: good grades.

Recommended For You

Abu Dhabi responds to drone-linked fire near Barakah nuclear plant

UAE says 'terrorist attack' near Barakah power site is unacceptable act of aggression

Iran to announce traffic mechanism for Hormuz; US aircraft carrier returns from region

UAE, Saudi Arabia sight Dhul Hijjah crescent; Eid Al Adha dates announced

UAE minister discusses Iran's attacks, threats to vessels with IMO chief

 

Stay up to date with the latest news. Follow KT on WhatsApp Channels.

Facetious? Perhaps, but therein lies the problem; people aren’t bothering to learn, because what’s the point? The world is on fire, genocide on our phones, and no one outside of activists is doing anything to stop it.

The least we can do is relieve the kids of some of their stress.

It’s a well-known fact that the most important thing a child or youth can do is play; it develops their imagination and communication skills; they learn how to follow rules inside of a framework, and how to work in a team and share responsibilities. They learn how to be a humble winner and a gracious loser, while the process overall frees kids to be kids.

This isn’t to say school is a bad thing, but when artificial intelligence came along, the vast majority of institutions were clamouring to get in on the ground floor, while not asking what we lose or should have been doing along the way. To say nothing of the fact that all LLMs I could name that you would know are owned by private corporations with their own agendas and flaws, but that the most widespread, ChatGPT, has already begun to learn how to lie, blackmail and manipulate to encourage engagement.

I remember when all my friends made their first social media account. Like many, I had one – or four – before my parents even thought to restrict my usage, and I was seeing things that no young teenager should while dealing with acne and math class. I can only imagine growing up
with your parents on social media, as most Gen Z today will have experienced, while also having access to generative AI that
can supposedly offer up all the knowledge in the world, perfectly, with all the necessary nuances?

When there are studies confirming that there are ghosts in the machine; hallucinations the AI convinces itself are fact and regurgitates to accelerate responses regardless of relevance? When we know of the environmental effects of things like data centres sucking up the power and water pressure to cool their systems?

Not to be a beatnik hippie journalist, but what happened to the process? Maybe I’m getting old before 30, but it all seems very... suspicious. Truly, I side-eye the tech-billionaires as much as the next guy, but when I meet someone who uses an LLM regularly, I can tell. And their work sucks too.

AI certainly isn’t the enemy, but we need to remember the ‘artificial’ part. Just like you wouldn’t trust a doctor who got their medical degree online in six weeks, I’m not going to trust anyone or anything just because it claims knowledge that was fed into it while destroying physical books in the process, all without the hard work and emotional growth that comes with sitting for hours and hours of research.