The rise in popularity of artificial intelligence (AI) programs within the past two years has taken the school community by storm. Applications like ChatGPT and HIX.AI are more commonly found on the devices of teachers or students and are used for a variety of purposes that can be good or bad from an academic perspective.
In order to properly assess the effects of AI on the Barstow student body, the B-Line conducted a survey. 79.5% of responders said they don’t use AI for school purposes, while the remaining 20.5% said they do utilize AI in school. In terms of out-of-school use, the percentage was a cleanly split 50% on each side.
The most used AI program at Barstow seems to be ChatGPT. Grammarly and Snapchat AI were also frequently mentioned by students. Others include Google AI, Bing AI, Photomath, Photoshop AI, etc.
Students were asked about their feelings regarding the usage of artificial intelligence in school settings, and answers varied between approval and strong hatred.
“I strongly dislike it. I think it encourages people to use AI to write their work for them. I also think human feedback is much better than artificial feedback,” one student wrote. Conversely, another expressed that “it can be used for good if it is accepted and used with an understanding of what it is capable of.” Many students aligned with one of these two opinions, and some simply stated that AI is a tool that they don’t want to use for anything because of its unfamiliarity.
Issues with AI in school environments include enablement of cheating on homework assignments, quizzes, and essays. As a result, many schools have enacted policies against the usage of ChatGPT and other tools and are eligible to take action when students utilize such tools to cheat. Barstow is one such school- the creation of the Honor Council is a direct form of retaliation against plagiarism among students. Thankfully, the majority of people in our community do not use AI for in-school purposes.
There is no wrong in using ChatGPT and such forms of AI for things concerning schoolwork- however, there is a vast difference between asking ChatGPT to explain a math equation versus asking it to write an entire essay. It is necessary to remember that all tools must be used responsibly! Mishandling AI only brings harm to the user. However, AI does offer a variety of benefits that are worth exploring. As an anonymous student said: “It can be a useful tool, but it should not be used as a replacement for actual work and effort.”
