Jose Gonzalez-Campelo/The Cougar
ChatGPT is extremely popular among the students, but unfortunately it could catastrophic for the future of education. AI models create a standard for students that accepts subpar writing and therefore subpar thinking.
This theme can be summed up in one word: Tapestry.
Recently, users have noticed that ChatGPT overstressed the word is so common that even university admissions officers have complained on social media about countless essays that contain the phrase “rich cultural diversity.”
It’s not just “Tapestry”. If you look at ChatGPT’s preferred vocabulary, it’s striking how incredibly repetitive it is. Even their own Twitter account Jokes about it.
This repetition is a testament to the boring, uninspiring content generated by AI.
Writing is hard. It’s a question without an answer, a test where you can never get a full score. If you’re lucky enough to have a grading scale, it’s probably vague and open to interpretation. Even with that guideline, following it doesn’t guarantee a good grade.
Because the American education system prefers to test writing skills rather than teach them, students often find that AI-generated essays are better for checking boxes than their own writing. Although the AI content will be boring, formulaic, and mediocre, a student might accept it as the best because it is far better than what they could write themselves.
Ultimately, ChatGPT rewards mediocrity.
Imagine a student struggling to write an essay. He gathers a long list of ideas and writes a few paragraphs before realizing that they are not going anywhere.
Through persistence, they come up with a sentence, and then a paragraph. The next day, students test and discard more ideas, and finally create something they can proudly put their name to.
After all that work, her English teacher covers every inch of the paper with red ink and gives him a D.
Through the disbelief, disappointment, and anger, the student may have actually learned a few rules about writing. He will apply those rules when writing his next essay.
What happens after one semester? After one school year? After half a decade? Everything about their brains will be different. The ideas they have will be numerous and original., and they can better link them to other concepts.
As they string them together, they will become aware of the minute details of their plan and see how together they are creating something extraordinary. They will grow from their experiences and eventually be able to improve on their mistakes.
What if that student used ChatGPT for his first essay and his English teacher gave the boring, formulaic essay a decent grade? The student would miss out on this development.
And what if millions of students across the country had to forego the development of these cognitive skills because an AI model produced only a mediocre but passable result?
Suppose a doctor receives a patient suffering from a rare disease. Running out of time and resources, he suddenly remembers something from his training ten years ago: an obscure treatment that can only be used in a specific case. He quickly and clearly explains to his team what needs to be done to save the patient, and his team suggests detailed improvements to the process. Together they save the patient’s life.
If the doctor had never learned to write properly and had relied on artificial intelligence during his decades of training, would he still be able to think so efficiently? Could he still save the patient’s life?
This dilemma is not just a problem for doctors. It affects engineers who build bridges that are essential to commerce, programmers who create databases for companies, and economists who decide how the economy will recover from a recession. It affects everyone.
As AI becomes more accessible, there are growing incentives for millions of students to accept mediocre writing and, by extension, mediocre thinking.
The use of AI models in schools should not become the norm. An intellectually less gifted population is a huge price to pay for a small piece of convenience, and the consequences will be hellish if students continue to accept the mediocrity of these models.
Rishi Chava is a finance newbie who can be reached at (email protected).
