AI “Co-Creating” Is the Future for Students
Right now, we’re telling kids that using AI like ChatGPT is “cheating.” Academia is apoplectic about the idea of students asking ChaptGPT to write a paper.
Fast-forward to a week after graduation from college, and using AI tools is a “critical skill” (in the words of many job listings).
So where is the line? It’s clear that using AI in knowledgeable ways is a valuable and needed skill. Telling people it’s cheating in one breath, then asking them to use it in the next, is non-congruent.
What to do?
AI is more and more important in society, and learning to co-create with it is the next massive opportunity. It’s here to stay. Everyone knows it exists who is in the professional, skilled-labor pool. Many already use it. Those who know about AI tools, and also have enough privilege to have the devices, connectivity, and time to do so, will use it to their advantage. (Much of the world has none of these things — that is an important caveat about AI.)
Who creates or controls AI, runs the world — there are many issues around this.
That said, right now, whoever uses AI advances further and faster than those who do not. Should we really be telling students — people — that using AI is “cheating?” Using AI is simply leveraging an important technology that helps one succeed. Like using Google.
Learning to use AI and co-create with AI is an emerging and important skill. Everyone with a job at a corporation right now is being asked to learn about AI and use it. So why would we suggest it’s “cheating” to write a paper using it?
The bigger question is about thinking for oneself, and proving one’s ideas. Sure, it’s easy to ask ChatGPT or any of the soon-to-follow tools to write a paper. But how does that showcase an individual person’s thoughts?
I think the issue is not with “cheating” by using AI but rather, cheating a student from the thought process of learning and thinking for themself. The issue is less about how to “prevent cheating,” but more about how to still develop learning and individual ideation and creative thinking.
I posit the idea that now, we need new ways to get students — and humans — to creatively think, explore, and do things. Working with AI now should be a goal, not a detriment. Learning new ways of creative thinking is the goal for education.
AI is here to stay, and is rapidly invading all aspects of life. Co-creating with AI is not only not “cheating,” it’s imperative. Very soon, most every aspect of life will include AI and working with AI.
We need new ways of helping smart and creative humans to co-create with AI, not ways to punish them for using the best tools they have now and will be using well beyond graduation.
Like Googling things, the new world will “AI it.” And that’s OK.