From its ability to develop photos indistinguishable from those taken by a camera in seconds to its ability to create high-quality creative works in literacy, AI has become an incredible tool that is efficient, accurate, and reliable. Despite these benefits, it threatens the current ways of education, allowing students to cheat more easily. How can education adapt and how will this affect the way we teach?
This is not the first time schools have been faced with a problem similar to this. When the internet was new, it made plagiarism and academic dishonesty easy to accomplish for almost anyone. Schools adapted to this by using plagiarism detectors (such as the ones present on Google Classroom), threatening great consequences if caught plagiarizing, and requiring citation. Today, AI can easily counter all of these, as its work is indistinguishable from human work. Schools must once again adapt, but how?
An easy way may be to use AI detectors, similar to the ones we use for plagiarism. AI detectors online are already readily available and easy to use. Similar punishments for plagiarism could be used for AI to deter students from using it. Although this may provide temporary relief to this problem, AI detectors may not be able to keep up with the technology of AI itself. As AI evolves, it may produce works completely identical to ones written by humans in the future. We need to adapt by thinking further in the future, as it will enviably come that these detectors will become outdated.
Instead of countering AI, we could accept it and model our education system around it. This radical idea may be the solution our society needs. One method, suggested by a professor from Wharton University Ethan Mollick in an article from The New York Times, is an idea called a “flipped classroom.” In this type of classroom, students learn the material outside of school (via AI or otherwise) and practice and test their knowledge in class. This encourages students to actually learn the material for class, rather than use AI programs to do their work and complete assignments for them. However, this idea will drastically affect our education system. It won’t work for everyone, especially for those who don’t have access to technology or research material.
AI is a complicated issue due to it being an ever-evolving technology. The future is uncertain. Could AI even be as big of a problem as we predict? For now, schools must decide what to do to adapt and evolve to fit in a world where high-quality original content is at a student’s fingertips.