Artificial intelligence (AI) in education was once intended to help students gather sources and information needed for assignments. However, students now use the tool to rush through assignments, not learning anything in the process.
AI is too tempting for most students so academic dishonesty, such as cheating and plagiarism, is rising. Over-reliance on AI prevents students from thinking for themselves and overall disrupts the critical thinking process. A study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that students who used ChatGPT frequently, scored 17% lower than students who did not. This shows that if you want to learn and score well, it is best to abstain from using AI.
The consequences of overusing AI could have important consequences beyond school. For instance, when students are employed, they may not know how to do their jobs properly, leading to lower quality work and overall performance. Since they used AI to get past their assignments and ultimately not learning anything from the experience they were supposed to receive from their work.
According to the online article, ‘When AI gets it wrong’ published by the MIT magazine, AI models do not review nor fact-check their information, but rather project information from different sources that may contradict each other. In some cases, AI could make up data without sources. It is best for students not to resort to AI for research, and instead learn how to do authentic research on topics that they need to understand.
Bullying may push victims to commit suicide, self harm, or become involved in other self-destructive tendencies. Deepfakes can be used for sextortion and this is evident in the case of seventeen year old Elijah Heacock, who committed suicide after he fell victim to a sextortion case in 2025. Scammers possessed an AI-nude photo of him and threatened to release the photos if they did not receive a sum of $3,000.
Overall, while some students may argue that AI helps them understand their schoolwork and complete their assignments, and educators may use it to aid them in coming up with creative lesson plans, there are too many harmful side effects of AI usage to overlook them. AI hinders the problem solving and acreative thinking skills that schools aim to teach, and it can also be used to worsen cyberbullying.
