I was shocked when one of my students asked me, "Why do we have to learn anything when we can search up everything in 2 sec?" I mean it is a pretty fair question at a superficial level, but I knew that it was a dangerous way of thinking at a deeper level. When I teach my students to write esssys and assign them to write one for our upcoming class, I get back a rather high level of written piece which I know for certain my students haven't written (these are my ESL students showing written work close to my level). So when I ask them, they answer honestly that they've used ChatGPT to write it for them and always state that others in class all use it as well.
Now, I understand it is very tempting to rely on this software because it can now generate a quality piece of work in a matter of seconds and everybody else uses it as well. Frankly, I probably would've tried it myself at times if we had such a thing back in the days. But I remind my students of the 3 dangers when relying solely on this software. One danger is that we will lose our ability to think and generate ideas on our own. Part of what makes humans interesting is their capacity for creativity. Everyone has thoughts and opinions they formulate no matter how different they might be. But relying on a software to do the thinking for us is to diminish our value as human beings, and we may also lose the ability to intertwine and weave our experiences to produce thoughts thare are unique to ourselves. Meaning, we also lose our personality, values and belief system as well. Now, I don't go this much into depth when reasoning with my students why ChatGPT might be unhelpful down the road, but I do firmly believe everything I stated will come true if we constantly rely on AI to do the work for us.
Second danger lies in that we might lose our patience in learning something new that might take a bit of time - and true learning always takes time. Just like how my student was inclined to use the web or AI that spews back answers in 2 seconds, we begin to lose patience in seeking answers through various means such as conversing with professors, asking peers or seniors, or by reading various books. Obviously they may not provide the answers like AI does, but it is in the decoding, demystifying and reinterpreting using our previous knowledge where true learning takes place. But students will instead get accustomed to eliminating this long but meaningful process and lose out on deep level of understanding in various subjects. As our old pedagogues all say, "Something that comes easy goes away easily," meaning what we search up in 2 seconds and learn briefly won't take long before it begins to disappear from our memory, giving us no opportunity to meaningfully apply the knowledge into our lives.
Third danger is that we lose our problem-solving skills. Not only have we gotten more lazy with thinking now that we have AI do that for us, but our brain gets exhausted quickly whenever we are faced with new problems, whatever it may be. It is similar to how if you pick up on your cardio exercises after a long break, your muscles and your heart tire out very quickly and you no longer can keep up like you used to. Likewise, our brain will give up on solving complex problems at hand, and we may have to deal with the consequences which can be an even bigger headache. And the last thing you want is to have this vicious cycle repeat itself to a point you totally lose motivation to do anything.
Now, some of you guys might be thinking that what I've said is too dramatic or extreme, but what I want to emphasize is that these side effects can happen if we overly rely on AI for an extended period of time. So, I want to challenge you to find ways to take advantage of ChatGPT rather than to have it take advantage of us.
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