Student Spectrums

Maaria Khan is a 10th-grade student at ILM Academy, who thinks critically and has strong opinions about the world, everyday politics, and activism for human rights. She wants to fuel people’s thoughts with new ideas eventually and hopes for peace in the world.

Gen-Z needs to catch up in many aspects of life, mainly in terms of education. AI is consistently used in 95% of American schools every day, but as a high schooler living in California, better known as the “Silicon Valley”, I’m sitting here biting my nails, wondering what will happen to today’s youth, including me, when I become a huge victim in the AI wild goose chase for infinite and creative ideas. AI is creating madness all around us, eroding our creativity and intellect to solve problems, making us rely on the “new brain”. This can’t be the solution in all cases, especially when we know AI is programmed by other humans. 

AI has been around for almost 75 years, but its most recent improvements are life-changing. As shared at Walden University, Artificial Intelligence is most likely to replace people’s jobs, diminish the creativity in people’s minds, and make them more dependent on it. However, AI is just programmed and gives others what they need– food for thought. It worries me that if people solely rely on such a malicious creation, what will happen to their minds next? For all they could know, AI could be feeding them biased information about political, racial, and economic issues, convincing them to believe in certain ideas, and changing people’s way of thought. It will most likely stop people from thinking at all! There needs to be a solution for this issue immediately, otherwise our youth will suffer the consequences of filling their brains and lives with dormancy and laziness, destroying the so-called creativity they have left.

I say that if humans created AI, then its use could be stopped, or reduced by them as well. Schools should have restrictions on AI use for projects and assignments, and limit it to making useful research and taking notes. People may believe that AI is another way to improve their lives. Sure, but the negative effects outweigh the positive, evidently showing results in student numbers dropping day by day. To resolve this issue, Daniel Schwartz, the Dean of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University, says that teachers could “slightly change their education systems” by allowing students to analyze AI-generated answers and create their responses. Perhaps this is one way to improve the student’s brains and creativity.

There are multiple ways to work around the “new brain”. It should be easier for people to come up with such ideas if they are capable enough to program artificial intelligence, and put limits to their dependence on something that repeats the same group of responses over and over. Every time a certain robot or machine is created, it always comes with a manual and a control switch. The best way to control the progression of AI would be to figure out solutions and methods to use it properly and take accountability. The other important solution is to raise more awareness about this issue and encourage people to find ways around AI because it’s not the only way to go. AI should be people’s last resort option, if they continue to let this rapidly growing system progress, then it will get out of hand eventually and have drastic effects on how the youth will function.