With Millennials and Generations Z and Alpha learning to maneuver and work their way through navigating modern artificial intelligence, or AI, new innovations are being created and utilized to make everyday life easier, hence the real definition of technology. AI is not a new concept, however the modes of its uses have broadly expanded from using your phone to create an avatar to match your exact likeness to students using applications to write full assignments and essays just by typing in a few key words. Sounds pretty good . . . until its use becomes a pedestal of dishonesty and malicious behavior.
John Bailey, an advisor to the American Enterprise Institute, wrote an article in Education Next explaining the implications of AI use in education. He writes, “Students might use AI to solve homework problems or take quizzes. AI-generated essays threaten to undermine learning as well as the college-entrance process.”
When students, whether in high school or college, use an AI application like ChatGPT to craft their work, there isn’t any type of critical thinking going on. An AI crafted essay has no thought or personal perspective that can connect to whatever topic might be on hand. Technology has no emotion (let’s hope it stays that way) and just builds a generic, mechanical essay based on a type of algorithm that grabs certain words and phrases from numerous sources without citations. That might have been kind of hard to read but that alone is a scary notion that this application almost prevents students from thinking on their own. It teaches nothing.
If we delay this issue, or nothing is done about the use of AI in this context, the next generation(s) will become so dependent on artificial intelligence that it will become hard to tame or control. The world will be left as a place ruled by AI, mankind answering to AI, and providing no space for human interaction or creation.
Personally, I think AI utilized in the right way and in the correct context, should be used. Mankind has a brain of its own: we don’t need to rely on technology to do all the work we can perform ourselves.
Ja’Vontaye Gagum
Associate Student Representative, Southern Region, 2023-2024
Alpha Sigma Chapter
North Carolina Central University, Durham, NC
Sigma Tau Delta
Sigma Tau Delta, International English Honor Society, was founded in 1924 at Dakota Wesleyan University. The Society strives to
- Confer distinction for high achievement in English language and literature in undergraduate, graduate, and professional studies;
- Provide, through its local chapters, cultural stimulation on college campuses and promote interest in literature and the English language in surrounding communities;
- Foster all aspects of the discipline of English, including literature, language, and writing;
- Promote exemplary character and good fellowship among its members;
- Exhibit high standards of academic excellence; and
- Serve society by fostering literacy.
With over 900 active chapters located in the United States and abroad, there are more than 1,000 Faculty Advisors, and approximately 9,000 members inducted annually.
Sigma Tau Delta also recognizes the accomplishments of professional writers who have contributed to the fields of language and literature.
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