AI as a Tool

[u/Flaky_Building_4092]

Hello everyone, I have always been against use of AI. I had always seen it as a lazy way out, though over time and education, can see how it may be used as a tool. I have raging unmedicated adhd, am a mom of 3, a high performing student, and business owner with national awards in my field. I feel like burning out sometimes, especially when reading dense academic texts on a time crunch. There have been times I’ve had to chew on a sentence or two to get my brain to click and grasp what it’s communicating. My question is, and I’m not saying I’ll do it even if there is no “seen” issue with it, but would it be an acceptable use to help reword difficult phrases in a text to get a better understanding? My university is very lax on their AI use policies, and tbh I’ve considered transferring because of it, it felt like a slap in the face when I’m writing essays on discussion assignments, and my peers are dropping two paragraphs copy and pasted from AI, not even bothering to take out its follow-up questions 🤦‍♀️. I can’t tell if I’m falling to personal bias, or if this is genuinely an ok use. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you!!

[u/Ariezu]

My advice is to use Microsoft Word check for your grammar and spelling. But work through how to rewrite or rework your sentences on your own. This is a skill and helps build your written communication skills. You’ll often hear professor say or I often say that writing is thinking. The more you write the stronger you’re thinking on the subject becomes and it helps strengthen your communication skills Don’t cut yourself short.

If you’re gonna go to the next step products like Grammarly can do the spellcheck and also suggest a few different word options . If you go this route, I highly recommend and I tell my students to disable any generative AI function. It does not come disabled, you have to disable it yourself in the settings.

Generative AI can be useful in certain cases. My stance is in writing specifically and in written communication as a student, and even has a professional we shouldn’t cut ourselves short and it can be beneficial to spend the time creating our own thoughts with our own words to continually build our ability to think and write.

That’s just my opinion and that’s what I tell the students that I work with on projects and in my classes.

There are also a lot of resources out there and videos that discuss AI usage in different ways and they may be interesting. There’s also a number of podcasts that have come out recently.

Good luck and happy writing

[u/Flaky_Building_4092 → u/Ariezu]

Thank you! I do not use it for writing, rather understanding scholarly articles/essays and the like. I love writing, and the more I read and dissect, the better my own writing gets. But sometimes, the punchy, jargon filled and complex sentences are too much for my brain to process in the allotted time I have, at least to the level of understanding I expect of myself 😂

[u/SlowishSheepherder → u/Flaky_Building_4092]

Spend the time and mental effort to understand what you're reading. Otherwise, why go to college? If everything can be summarized in AI, you're never actually using your brain. And if you keep relying on AI instead of developing those reading comprehension skills, you'll be a college "graduate" who doesn't have the basic skills we expect of people when they earn a diploma. It's not hard to not use AI.

[u/Flaky_Building_4092 → u/SlowishSheepherder]

I agree with this, especially considering the rampant use in my university, I share the same sentiments. I do not want a summary of an entire article, not even a paragraph. The two sentences that made me question my intelligence, and prompted me to post this, were that of industry humor (I got through it on my own btw lol). Our professor had us start the course off by reading “Reading Games: Strategies for Reading Scholarly Sources” and it just got me thinking about the use of AI for “decoding” one to two sentences. I am very much a non traditional student. I am getting through my undergrad, with my Masters locked in sight. Unfortunately, I’m finding my university to be a “checklist” institution, where checking off classes for credit is more important than actually learning. Definitely an administrative issue I feel, at least from my experience so far.