LETTER: AI can be a useful tool in the classroom

Artificial Intelligence is equivalent to Wikipedia when it comes to high school or college students. In other words, AI represents a pretty accurate way to obtain data, observations and conclusions about a heck of a lot of information.

Yes, it is possible to simply use Wikipedia to write a paper for you, given a class assignment — and many students do it. For the teaching institution, professors must spend much of their time trying to discover if and how much work was done by the computer and how much was done by the student. Why? Instead of ignoring or trying to prevent AI in the classroom, why not accept its use and ask the student to provide discussion, argument and analysis over and above that provided by the computer? Ask the student to provide the source of the data within the paper.

Instead of having to check for plagiarism, let’s get back to checking for use and understanding of source material and any original insight provided by the student. It is time to realize that the human mind goes well beyond the limitations of AI.