As generative AI continues to intrude on almost every aspect of our daily lives, students are increasingly starting to feel the effects of over-relying on the tech.
Some are going to absurd lengths to use AI to complete their assessments while avoiding being caught cheating. Meanwhile, exam scores are dropping off a cliff as students struggle to get by without using the tech as a crutch.
The effects extend far beyond bad grades. Some college students are losing the ability to participate in class discussions, a terrifying consequence of offloading their cognitive facilities to AI.
In a report on the state of education last month, MIT researchers warned that the alarming trend is leading to “cognitive surrender,” effectively overriding their own intellectual agency with the output of AI.
“As AI-enabled technologies become more capable, it will be possible — and tempting — to offload more ‘thinking’ tasks to them; not surprisingly, students told us the temptation was greatest when they feared they would miss a deadline,” the report reads. “There are early signals, however, that overreliance on chatbots can have a range of significant negative consequences — diminishing critical thinking, weakening memory, eroding confidence, and undermining mastery.”
It’s a thorny subject as administrators continue to push for more AI adoption, not less. That’s despite countless educators, who’ve watched helplessly as their AI-dependent students struggle in the classroom, are bristling at the thought.
“I think you have to lean in, but you have to do so in a way that’s thoughtful and ethical and asks the right questions,” University of Hawaii president Wendy Hensel told the New York Times. “The right answer to AI is not just ‘no.’ It can’t be. It has to be approached with curiosity and understanding of the implications.”
We’ve seen study after study warning that the overreliance on AI chatbots could have devastating effects on education. Students aren’t being taught to internalize what they’ve learned, as one MIT study found last year.
“You basically didn’t engage any of the memory networks that would actually help you remember,” coauthor and MIT researcher Nataliya Kos’myna told the NYT.
At the same time, university administrators argue that preparing students for an AI-dominated future remains paramount — a belief that could risk further eroding their cognitive thinking skills.
Others are drawing a much harder line, like the University of Chicago’s school of law, which announced it was banning the use of phones, tablets, and even laptops in class for first-year courses earlier this year.
More on AI and education: College Students Using AI to Cheat Are Going to Absurd Lengths to Avoid Detection
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