By: Cassidy Lockhart and Rilo Wilkes
Generative Artificial Intelligence entered the public’s radar in 2022. While Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) was first conceptualized in the 1950s, it has changed greatly over time. Nowadays, there are two different types of A.I., Narrow and General. Narrow A.I. is things like Siri and algorithms, while General A.I. is ChatGPT.
While A.I. is the technical name of the modern day learning model used by most companies, it doesn’t quite match what it actually is. Most A.I. learning models are amalgamations of selective types of sources which were pumped into them by its creators. From the beginning, it’s not by itself learning, but instead combing through what it’s allowed to search through to find a quick answer to questions. In other words, a more apt description for A.I. would be an amalgamation search engine.
That being said, calling them amalgamation search engines might also be giving them too much credit. A.I. as a whole now is catching a lot of flack for sharing a great deal of misinformation. This occurs because A.I. doesn’t have any form of “back-checking”, all it does is copy and paste information and makes it more digestible. There is no fact check and it can easily display any number of biases depending on where it looks or sometimes down right misinformation.
Maybe one of the biggest problematic parts of A.I. is the exponential drain of resources it causes.
“Beyond electricity demands, a great deal of water is needed to cool the hardware used for training, deploying, and fine-tuning generative AI models”.
This comes from an article called “Explained: Generative AI’s environmental impact” by Adam Zewe. This article focuses on the environmental impact that A.I. causes including crazy energy and water demands for running and cooling respectively.
It seems there is also a concern from teachers especially, regarding students lack of awareness for the environmental damage A.I. can and is causing.
When asked, Nicholas Warmke, if he thought his students understood the dangers of A.I. he had this to say.
“No, not even close.”
When student teacher Rowan Thompson was asked the same question she said something similar.
“No, probably not”.
Senior Elizebeth Boyd was also asked if she understood the harms of A.I. and had this to say.
“Nope.”
Finally, Art Teacher Ellen Hadley is concerned about students’ knowledge on A.I.
¨I think it’s important for us to address that with students so they do know that, you can’t assume they just know it¨.
This general ignorance from students about the environmental damage that A.I. causes is one of the biggest concerns. It’s recognized that the severity of A.I.’s continued presence has to be known among the student body, as it’s the student body that uses it the most.
A.I. is already greatly affecting how people socialize, and it will have a lasting impact even if it gets under control sometime soon. It is greatly impacting how younger generations face challenges, and how they treat their peers.
Hadley shows a glimpse into the art world as she expresses concern for the artist whose work gets put into A.I.
¨It’s rough in the art world. I feel for those whose art is stolen by A.I.¨.
She also fears having to differentiate between A.I. and reality, and that she fears students will one day no longer know the difference between the two.
Senior Raen Ridgway said that he tries to avoid using A.I. the best he can, even though he feels tempted to try it out.
¨Sometimes I think ´let the A.I. overlords take over my life´ but I try not to.”
It’s not just the damage on the environment or the societal dependence either; another huge issue with A.I. is the damage it has on the curricular and professional environments. It affects how students and teachers interact with the academic world, and how work is distributed.
The absolute biggest effect A.I. has on the educational environment is the nature of not letting students actually learn. As Thompson put it,
“It doesn’t help students learn.”
Or hear it from Warmke,
“We need to have a conversation as a country, state, or institution on why you are robbing yourself of education with the usage of A.I..”
A.I. simply does not encourage students to learn and instead encourages them to take an easy path to getting information that has the habit of being unreliable and untrue.
In the immortal words of Warmke,
“If you think for even a second the internet is better off because of things like Grok, you need to sit and think for 20 minutes.”
This form of A.I. models are harmful to the students’ ability to learn and function as well as harmful to our environment and not enough is being done to recognize or rectify the situation.
All this being said, what do we actually do about these issues?
As stated before, we need conversations. All of the interviewees stated that A.I. has potential, but in its current state it causes more harm than it helps and very few think it’s worth it.
So next time you want to “easily write an essay” or “generate a couple images” consider the damage that it causes.
