The consistent debate on AI and its effects on our daily lives remains prevalent amongst society just as much, if not more, than when Chat GPT first launched its ability to rewrite your grocery list in a more calm and direct manner. This proves that even as time goes on, AI’s integration into our existence will never be “old news”. The real question on everyone’s mind still remains: Is AI a good idea?

There are the obvious pros to AI that you’ve likely already been exposed to through commercials and articles in favor of AI. It can explain technology to your grandmother while you’re busy at work and can’t find the time, or it can tell the difference between an intruder in your home or your cat. It also creates a world where certain services, like chatbots for customer service, are available 24/7 and do not need human labor.

But then the “positives” quickly become less and less. Let’s take Google’s AI Overview for example. Sure, it’s nice that it gives a summary of your question without you having to click on numerous websites, but how great is a tool that’s notorious for giving wrong answers? Surely everyone is familiar with the viral instance of when AI Overview recommended that pregnant women eat five rocks a day, taking information from The Onion, a well-known satirical newspaper. Here, we meet another issue that I see only a few academics touching on: Plagiarism. Google’s AI tool took information directly from The Onion without citing it. All my life, from every teacher I met, I was taught over and over to always cite my sources. Plagiarism was a huge deal in all of my schools. “It can get you kicked out of college,” I was told many times. Why on earth we continue to refuse to hold corporations accountable in the same way we do to regular civilizations is beyond me, but that’s a discussion for another day.

This all pertains to our society as a whole, but let’s take a magnifying glass and look at PC’s population specifically considering the epidemic that is AI usage. Every professor acknowledges AI, either forbidding it or outlining how it may be used in their classroom. Most teachers choose the first path, explaining to their students in their syllabus that no AI is to be used whatsoever and any violation of this rule will end in failure. The teachers who are pro-AI claim it’s a tool that can help students further their work, but the most that AI-using students do isn’t anything other than using a prompt and then copy and pasting the answer. There is no critical thinking involved whatsoever. I understand those teachers, however. They do not want the hassle of arguing with students who use AI behind their back, so they choose to accept it. I must say, despite all of this, that allowing AI will never be the answer. At the end of the day, AI removes the beauty of academics. The desire to learn is not as courageous nor respectable if nobody is willing to put in any work.