Emerson Castillo Paiz, 10th Grade

Every year, we find ourselves involved in new technology, there’s either a new way to use technology or something incredibly new that we learn to use. With all this new technology, one that truly stands is AI technology and its endless possibilities. AI can be used for many things which can be as simple as answering questions or as hard as writing an essay. Although AI seems like it could be useful for really anything, is it worth using? Sometimes people overuse AI to the point that it isn’t even believable, and people use it in ways that it was never intended to be used for. People who don’t do well use it to advantages that won’t help them in life and will only hold them back. Throughout this essay, you will see the different impacts and ways AI is used in education and the development of students and the different points of views on the topic. To organize everything I will begin by covering advantages.

There will always be advantages and disadvantages to every situation. So, let’s begin with the positives of AI and its different usages in society. There are 5 major advantages to the usage of AI in education. First off, AI is usually separated into 3 different categories, Weak, Strong, and Super AI. Weak AI is known to be common in our daily lives, focusing on one task and does not have the ability to perform beyond its limitations. Strong AI which researchers are striving to reach can understand and learn any intellectual task that a human being can. Lastly, Super AI is only a concept but surpasses human intelligence and has the ability to perform tasks better than any human could. The first major advantage is the personalization of learning. According to CIS University, they state “AI allows adapting study materials to the level of each student. This means that each individual can learn at their own pace, strengthening their weaknesses and advancing in areas where they show greater ability.” This can be seen as a huge advantage because it gives students a new and unique way to learn at their own pace while still progressing. The second huge advantage seen in learning is administrative efficiency. CIS University backs this up by stating “Educational institutions can use AI to automate administrative tasks, allowing educators to focus more on teaching and less on bureaucracy.” In simpler terms, this means that schools of any kind can use AI to handle administrative tasks, which increases the amount of time spent on teaching and learning and decreases the amount of time spent on paperwork. This is seen as an advantage to the students because it allows them to spend more time learning and understanding any materials which less time wouldn’t allow them to understand to the point necessary. This brings us to our third big advantage, accessibility. CIS University states “AI facilitates student access to high-quality educational resources, regardless of economic status or geographic location.” This means that AI gives students the opportunity to access top-notch educational resources, no matter where they are and no matter how much money a school can provide for these resources. This allows the students to be able to reach a large range of resources from anywhere and about anything. The next huge advantage is continuous assessment. CIS University says “AI can assess each student’s progress and provide real-time feedback, helping them identify their strengths and areas for improvement.” This could actually be really beneficial because AI would be able to see how much a student progresses over the year, finding new ways to let the teacher know how the student can receive help and where exactly the help could be used. The last big advantage of AI is Intelligent Tutor Systems. According to Urbe University, “AI can provide intelligent tutoring systems that offer personalized guidance and support to students. These systems utilize natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to engage in real-time conversations with students, answering their questions, providing explanations, and offering targeted feedback. Intelligent tutoring systems empower students to seek assistance whenever needed, enhancing their understanding of complex concepts and promoting self-directed learning.” AI offers personal tutoring systems so that students can be helped in subjects they need to be helped in their free time. AI has gone as far as offering the opportunity to tutor someone with an automated voice that answers questions, provides helpful explanations, and gives useful feedback. This version of AI can be seen as helpful but CIS University says “Although, as it is often said, all that glitters is not gold.”

Which now brings us to the other side of the story of AI. There are always advantages and disadvantages when it comes to really anything and we have already talked about the advantages, so it is now time to visit the disadvantages. To make this simpler, I will also be talking about 5 disadvantages only. The first, most important problem is plagiarism risks. According to eLearning Industries, “Online tools can let students plagiarize more easily. Essay bots and AI could be misused to cheat. It is because AI tools are trained on vast amounts of data so that they may likely produce the same information repeatedly. This hurts learning integrity.” The reason this problem is very big is because it doesn’t allow students to have any creativity in writing. This could be the start of using AI to plagiarize their work allowing them to become “lazy”. The next problem is reduced human interaction. eLearning Industries states that “Learning is also about social skills, not just information. If you are using online tools, make sure you learn and not just copy-paste. Relying too much on AI may reduce face-to-face time with teachers and other students. This could affect social development.” According to this statement, students who mostly focus on using AI in education are known to have reduced face-to-face time with teachers and other students. This is what makes students have less social development which could lead to problems speaking to other people in the future. The third problem with using AI is the loss of traditional teaching styles. According to eLearning Industries, “Rushing to adopt AI can lead to the neglect of traditional teaching methods. It is because AI is as new to people as it is to the learning system.” Since AI technology is one of the newer types of technology, teachers have to find new ways to teach using AI which reduce the amount of traditional teaching styles used nowadays. Students would have to adapt to these new teaching methods making learning difficult as they progress through the year. The fourth disadvantage is the over-reliance on tools. According to eLearning Industries, “Some say that students use AI and online tools too much; a lot of them are using AI chatbots for completing assignments. This can hurt skills like critical thinking and solving problems themselves. Also, always depending on tools may lower students’ creativity.” Teachers, schools, and students would turn out to rely on AI technology allowing them to lose creativity and originality. The final advantage is the data ending up in the wrong hands. According to Digitaldefynd, “With technology advancing daily, information is getting digitized irrespective of size and kind. But just like every other digital information, the data of schools, universities, and students is highly prone to hacking. If it ever falls into the wrong hands, it could lead to misuse of personal data in multiple ways.” This can be seen as a danger to students or teachers. If a student uses personal information in order to use AI or anyone in the school does, then there could be a huge chance of being hacked, getting the information leaked, or even losing specific things you need.

Now that you have seen the advantages and disadvantages of AI in education and development, I will answer some questions. AI can be promoted in different ways. One way can be promoting educational videos to the needs of a student using AI. This could allow for creativity because the student would be able to listen and understand what they need to learn while finding new ways to do it. Next, educators play a huge role in students using AI. There are two major reasons for students to use AI, either they feel as if the workload is a lot and find ways to do things simpler or are assigned things that require AI usage. In the end, AI has both advantages and disadvantages when it comes to student development and education.

Work Cited

1.Guerra, Abel “The Future Benefits of Artificial Intelligence for Students” urbeuniversity.edu, Urbe University, July 6, 2023 https://urbeuniversity.edu/blog/the-future-benefits-of-artificial-intelligence-for-students

2.Team DigitalDefynd “12 Pros and Cons of using AI in Education”, digitaldefynd.com, DigitalDefynd, 2024 https://digitaldefynd.com/IQ/ai-in-education-pros-cons/

3.CIS University “The Benefits of AI in Education”, cis-spain.com, CIS University, October 2, 2023 https://www.cis-spain.com/en/blog/the-benefits-of-ai-in-education/

4. Riaz, Sophia “Should Students be Using Online Tools and AI to Study”, elearningindustry.com, eLearningindustry, September 22, 2023 https://elearningindustry.com/should-students-be-using-online-tools-and-ai-to-study