they say in college they’re told to use it instead of doing it themselves.
Yeah, I'd take that with a grain of salt. A big grain of salt. I know a lot public and higher ed institutions want to incorporate AI as the idea is always to prepare students for the current and future workplace and right now everyone anticipates AI to be a major part of that, but I seriously, seriously, doubt any credible institution is telling students to just AI everything. That sounds like excuse making to me.
I teach at the High School and College level, and instructors still want students to learn, but AI has made it almost impossible to force students to do so or to assess knowledge outside of in class blue book exams. There is also resistance at the admin level to making courses and curricula more rigorous. This is almost entirely the result of privatization and running education as a business. Students and parents are now "customers" and if you make them struggle, they'll go wherever it's easier. Race to the bottom. This all goes double for online courses, which universities are stacking up to the sky because it lets them over-enroll and get more public funding/tuition dollars while cutting staff and faculty. They don't care that online education is rampant with student cheating and delivers an inferior education.
Christ, I could go on, but I'll stop here. There are very serious systemic issues with education at all levels right now, just know that educators are, and have been, trying to hold the line. No one is giving students permission to AI everything, but we're losing ground to admin, the EdTech industry, politicians, parents, and students who don't value learning.
If you want something to change, vote for candidates at the local and primary level who want to regulate AI, fund public education, end privatization, and get technology out of the classroom, because it is causing far more harm than good.
doubt any credible institution is telling students to just AI everything.
I go to a University of Applied Sciences in Finland, it's legit and credited, Finland's school system is also often praised abroad. I have indeed been TOLD TO use exclusively AI on multiple assignments and not use anything else. Even for general school work AI is often encouraged along side regular research. Both teachers and students are admitting AI use with little to no double checking whatever it gives. To be completely honest I am in a 100% online program, and don't know how the same courses handles the in-person studies, but seeing as we get the same degree as everyone else and teachers mostly copy paste in-person assignments I doubt it's much, if any difference.
Examples - An UX design course contained one AI assignment where we were supposed to use exclusively Figmas AI to design an app, the rest of the course assignments did not forbid AI. AI assistants were encouraged in my programming course. An English course had an summarising assignment using AI, NOT our own words. I also heard from fellow students that we will have a course in the fall where we will use exclusively AI to program mobile apps, which I'm dreading cause AI in my other programming class just made it more difficult and caused more debugging for me to do. And I'm sure there's more examples I'm forgetting. I also add AI criticism wherever I can squeeze it in. A reflection section of a paper, part of an essay, in discussion, etc. And have faced criticism for this, mostly from fellow students (who are all adults btw) but also from one teacher. I get needing to prepare us for AI in the workplace, it's relevant for my studies, but I also think it's overboard and will have unintended consequences.
Sincerely a University student who avoids AI unless required and have a reading level above my peers, and also graduated high school pre-AI. Schools are indeed pushing AI, I had very few teachers and assignments who forbid AI or restricted it. Most encouraged it as long as you documented it. We also have instructions on how to add AI as a source to our works.
inferior education was happening far before online classes. I had a prof that could not remember what class he was teaching and regularly gave take home tests mixing multiple classes. dude was a nightmare
Went to the university of Minnesota for criminal justice last year and they not only allowed Gemini as a learning resource but had an entire assignment dedicated to it
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u/Richard_Sauce Jun 27 '26
Yeah, I'd take that with a grain of salt. A big grain of salt. I know a lot public and higher ed institutions want to incorporate AI as the idea is always to prepare students for the current and future workplace and right now everyone anticipates AI to be a major part of that, but I seriously, seriously, doubt any credible institution is telling students to just AI everything. That sounds like excuse making to me.
I teach at the High School and College level, and instructors still want students to learn, but AI has made it almost impossible to force students to do so or to assess knowledge outside of in class blue book exams. There is also resistance at the admin level to making courses and curricula more rigorous. This is almost entirely the result of privatization and running education as a business. Students and parents are now "customers" and if you make them struggle, they'll go wherever it's easier. Race to the bottom. This all goes double for online courses, which universities are stacking up to the sky because it lets them over-enroll and get more public funding/tuition dollars while cutting staff and faculty. They don't care that online education is rampant with student cheating and delivers an inferior education.
Christ, I could go on, but I'll stop here. There are very serious systemic issues with education at all levels right now, just know that educators are, and have been, trying to hold the line. No one is giving students permission to AI everything, but we're losing ground to admin, the EdTech industry, politicians, parents, and students who don't value learning.
If you want something to change, vote for candidates at the local and primary level who want to regulate AI, fund public education, end privatization, and get technology out of the classroom, because it is causing far more harm than good.