Starting this school year, I noticed that every one of my classes had anti-artificial intelligence policies. So, if my classmates or I were to use AI in any assignment, we would have to let the professor know and take a substantial hit to our grades.
I can understand being concerned about AI. Its ascendance has been fast and sudden. ChatGPT had one million users within its first five days of being available. For professors, AI poses the challenge of making cheating, especially on homework, much easier. Students can type in essay prompts, questions, or ask for book summaries and get results almost instantaneously.
What is the difference between using ChatGPT for a book summary versus SparkNotes? Or ChatGPT for a quiz answer versus Quizlet or Chegg?
I would argue that there is not much difference. Schools had to adapt to the internet in the 1990s, and now students are encouraged to use the internet as a tool to learn more easily and to find resources. ChatGPT and other forms of AI can be used in the same way; if a student can learn more efficiently by getting ideas and answers quickly from AI instead of conventional means, that student should do so.
The aim of college should be to learn, not to “work hard.” Learning is still learning, no matter how convenient or streamlined the process is. In fact, that should be encouraged. As the saying goes, “work smarter, not harder.”
AI is growing in the real world. In fact, the commercial application of AI technology has grown 270% in the past four years. Students should be prepared to enter a work environment that utilizes AI. Bosses are not going to prohibit you from using tools readily available at your disposal that could make you get more work done faster. In fact, I’d wager that they encourage it. Mastering AI is itself something worth learning.
Of course, I will concede that AI should not be used as a crutch. It should not be writing the whole essay or completing the full assignment. That’s cheap and inexcusable. This form of academic dishonesty is essentially plagiarism.
However, I think it is a great source to draw ideas and direction from. In my middle school and high school, math teachers banned calculators for a time. However, when students grow up, calculators are an integral part of learning complex mathematical concepts. AI should be used in the same way. This was the topic of an opinion article earlier this year.
We, at the University of Mississippi, are out of middle and high school. We, while still being guided by professors, should be trusted to use tools just like we would a calculator.
If professors are against AI, there is only one way to ensure that the rules are followed: Give students an old-fashioned pen and paper with a proctor.
AI gives me another reason to be anti-homework. This could be an entirely separate op-ed, but excessive homework hinders students’ campus involvement and social lives. Students are in class for many hours each week, which should be enough time in itself to learn and be graded. It does not need a supplement. If professors were serious about academic integrity in an increasingly pro-cheating environment, class time would become much more sacred; it should be treated as a space where AI would have little to no use.
Cass Rutledge is a junior majoring in public policy leadership from Madison, Miss.
