Classes, deadlines, study, repeat. For many students, this endless cycle can quickly become exhausting or even overwhelming, especially while trying to maintain a social life. But what if there were a way to make the process easier?

Enter artificial intelligence, popular tools such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini that students use to complete coursework more quickly. By typing questions into a chat box, the system responds with answers to the best of its ability.

At the surface level, the convenience of software completing a student’s work seems like a great alternative to working through the problems themselves — especially when the assignment becomes repetitive or long.

“I’ve used AI for chemistry that’s like solving equations,” said Abigail Rice, freshman in ACES. “I mean equations with like five steps that I just don’t want to do.”

With so much work to get through, Rice sees using AI occasionally as a helpful way to get all of her assignments done.

As students become more reliant on this tool, it raises concerns about academic integrity. 

Riley Faust, sophomore in LAS, refuses to use AI at all. She believes the negative impact on students’ work ethic associated with AI is more than enough reason to avoid it entirely.

Faust emphasized that even though using AI is an easy way to finish assignments, students using this software most times aren’t actually learning the content, which defeats the purpose of attending higher education. 

“I think for people who are going into professions that require a lot of base knowledge, like doctors or engineers — people who really need to know stuff for the safety of others — if they’re using AI to do all these tests and pass their classes because of AI and not learning the material, what does that mean for the safety of people in society as these individuals enter the workforce?” Faust said. 

While most University classes have a policy against the use of AI in students’ submissions, some teachers have embraced the software as a helpful resource. 

“If AI is used just as an extremely powerful and useful tool, am I worried that most people are using AI?” said Alexandre Gonçalves, professor in Media and instructor of JOUR 471: Science Journalism. “I think no. (My students) were using AI in the way I think AI is useful.”

According to Gonçalves, students should learn how to use AI to refine their own thoughts as opposed to having the software do all the work on its own. He emphasized the value of this system for students whose first language is not English.

“AI is useful when writing a paragraph, especially for people whose first language is not English,” Gonçalves said. “It must be very hard for them to express themselves in a very fluent way. So for them, I think it can be very useful.”

Though Gonçalves doesn’t believe AI should be used to think for students fully, he doesn’t have major consequences for students who use it to create work from scratch.

However, if he does notice a student fully using AI, he will give the same amount of effort in his feedback. 

“One thing that I say is, ‘Hey, if I notice that the whole thing that you are writing for me is actually coming from AI, don’t expect to have a lot of feedback because that would be irrational,’” Gonçalves said. “I love adding comments and helping and interacting with students. But if I see that these things actually didn’t come from my student, then what’s the point?”

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