Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been growing increasingly popular over the past years with new advancements and new AI being made. AI has become a part of some people’s daily life, and is starting to be advanced enough to do work. A side effect of this popularity is the debate that has arisen over AI. People wonder about the downsides of AI and how it could affect our future society. Many question the ethics of AI use in work, schools, and almost anything involving it.
Some students, like eighth grader Aaro Rouviunen, have spoken their mind on AI. “AI can help you when you are working or can help you fact check things when you need to,” he said. “AI is helpful and should be open to people, but not abused. It should be more of a resource and shouldn’t be writing essays for students.”
Aaro also discussed AI’s role in schools and the workforce: “It’s possible that AI takes over the workforce, but humans are important and AI isn’t fully competent,” he stated. “If it gets to schools, students will not be capable of using their skills and AI will be needed more, which isn’t good.”
Similarly, Media Specialist Andrew Cusumano reviewed AI. He stated, “It helps when you are having a mental block, if you want to learn about a topic, and it can make things like writing emails easier.”
He said he was “neutral on the topic, but I think it is beneficial to some people while other people use it harmfully. [Humans] become overly dependent and end up losing important skills. We need to find a balance with the use of AI.”
Mr. Cusumano said that AI in the workforce is “scary” because it’s use could have negative consequences including loss of jobs. He remarked, “AI is quicker at putting out info and can satisfy demand quicker, but this would be harmful to people who can’t do that as fast.”
He said that in the teaching industry, “AI could become too big a part of learning, which could affect how smart our future generations are.”
On the contrary, eighth grader Stanislaw Procak thinks differently on AI. “AI can give me recipes for new foods and help me with cooking,” he announced.
“AI doesn’t have anything wrong with it and it isn’t harmful to society. AI is very important to us and should have no limits to it,” Stanislaw stated. “We won’t lose anything to AI and it should be incorporated into our daily lives more.”
Seventh grader Krshnay Arora thought differently than Stanislaw. “AI is going to replace jobs and limit students using it in unethical ways for everything,” he said. “It will take over lots of jobs, hurting the economy and can make the quality of learning worse. Future students won’t value hard work and dedication.”
One subject that could be heavily impacted by artificial intelligence is English Language Arts (ELA). Eighth grade ELA teacher Kimberly Swenson spoke on AI. “It is time-saving for tasks, specifically writing and polishing rough drafts,” she said. “However, it can be harmful in educational settings. There’s a difference between asking for help with a title and making it write an entire essay for you.”
Mrs. Swenson also stated that, “AI is abused, but it is also an important tool that is helping students. It is important as it is our future and we need to learn to embrace it and incorporate it responsibly.”
