There is a silent tug-of-war happening at Roosevelt. Since generative A.I. tools such as ChatGPT became available to the public in 2022, students have started using them, while teachers and administrators have yet to ban them.
Students argue that these A.I. tools can be beneficial. They have a wide variety of uses that can help students excel and succeed in their classes. Shouldn’t student’s take advantage of every tool available to them?
“Yeah,” sophomore Jefferson Mendoza says. “I think tools like ChatGPT can be extremely useful as they can help improve the way students study, and can explain subjects students might not get or have forgotten.”
There are numerous A.I sites now in use, each a little different, and students are finding all kinds of ways to use them.
“I use A.I right before a test to jog up my memory or when I sometimes don’t understand a problem in my math homework,” sophomore Dagemawe Assefa says. “Instead of waiting to go back to school, I can just ask ChatGPT to help me better understand the problem.”
While these tools can be used to positively affect students, some teachers argue that A.I has no place in school as it allows better access for students to cheat. While the versatility of these generative artificial intelligence tools is one of the pros, it can also be considered a con due to how easy it is to just get the answer to almost every questions asked, allowing students to skip all the steps to get to the answer – which means they aren’t practicing the skill they need to solve these questions. Then they may find it hard when the time comes that they don’t have access to these tools like on test.
“I don’t like A.I. because, as high school students, you guys are still learning to write,” English teacher Emily Gomez says. “And while I see that it can be really helpful in many aspects, it is also really easy for students to take advantage of and not work on advancing their writing skills.”
District of Columbia Public Schools appears to be grappling with the issue. In its Student and Staff Technology Acceptable Use Policy, it says it “will provide students with lessons on the benefits and risks of AI through Digital Citizenship and AI-specific courses.”
In the meantime, it has prohibited two uses of AI:
“• Bullying and Harassment: Students are prohibited from using AI in a way that could harm themselves or others. Using AI tools to manipulate media to impersonate others is prohibited.
• Plagiarism and Cheating: Students are prohibited from submitting AI-generated work as their original work or using AI to answer test, exam, or other assignment questions (unless directed to do so by their teacher).”
