Spellcheck or Skynet...lines between acceptable use of AI tools and undermining learning
Grammar tools like Grammarly’s basic mode are often considered acceptable because they focus on mechanics, not this higher-order skill.
Idea Generation/
Constructing Meaning/
Argumentation
Along with electricity draw, this resource is greatly impacted by the growth in AI use.
Water
A Harvard Business Review article from 2025 reported that Gen AI enhanced the quality and efficiency of tasks. However when transitioning to another task, intrinsic motivation went _____, while boredom went ______
Down; Up
In experimenting with Chat GPT 3.5 in 2023, a data scientist asked it whether a pound of feathers or two pounds of bricks weighed more. ChatGPT confidently gave this answer.
They weigh the same.
Some grammar tools rewrite sentences to improve clarity, tone, or academic voice. For some, this may cross a line in acceptable AI use because AI is now performing this task for the student.
Composing original language/
Putting an idea into one’s own words
Open AI, last year, used the same amount of energy as 1,
3 or
10 million US homes.
3 Million
This is the most common use of AI that studies of education have found has a beneficial effect on students. As a hint, Mark Liffiton has designed several of these and will probably do one for your class if you ask nicely.
Personalized Tutoring
Last summer, the Chicago Sun-Times and Philadelphia Inquirer had to retract a summer reading list partially generated by AI for this reason.
Many of the books did not exist
A CMU art professor who uses AI tools in his own work created an assignment in which students used AI tools with the learning objective of increasing confidence and self-efficacy with their ability to work with such tools. The tool use in this case serves this purpose.
Preparing students for a real-life use case
Between watching an hour of Netflix in HD and making 100 AI queries, this uses more energy
Watching Netflix
“Cognitive offloading” is a frequent concern when discussing how AI affects critical thinking. This is a working definition of cognitive offloading.
Using external tools to reduce the cognitive load on an individual’s working memory
In 2024 the ACLU tested Amazon’s facial recognition system by asking it to match pictures of Congress to mugshots from a database of 25,000 criminals. There were 28 false positives (congress members identified as criminals who were not). Political jokes aside, what connected most of these misidentified politicians?
They were people of color.
While acceptable in some courses, using AI-powered search tools to summarize multiple sources may erode this fundamental academic skill.
Critical Reading/
Information Literacy/
Source Evaluation/
Synthesis
Because of greater water availability and cleaner power options, these two regions of the US would offer the best case scenarios for data center growth (answer with only one)
The Midwest/
Great Plains/
Windbelt (Texas, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota)
This summer a pre-review release of an MIT study made waves by suggesting ChatGPT may be eroding critical thinking skills. The study used an EEG to study brain activity and connection with three groups of students writing an essay: 1 group used ChatGPT, one group had no outside help, and the third group was allowed to use this research “tool” (the library would like to remind you we have great, reliable databases instead!)
Google Scholar
Google’s AI overview, which gives links to the information it finds, did not have a great first week. Among other things, when asked “how many muslim presidents has the US had?” it answered that there had been one, this former president.
Barack Obama
A 2024 article from the Journal of Chemical Education discussed having students in a chemistry class use ChatGPT to create data visualizations to prepare students to communicate science more effectively. The AI use in this case was permissible due to this distinction.
The learning objective was communication of concepts, not designing data visualizations.
A ChatGPT search uses this many more times the electrical power of a traditional Google search
10-20
A calculator is often used as an analogy for generative AI in terms of both positive and negative effects on cognition. This is the explanation of the ways in which a calculator (and, by extension, AI) might either help or hinder cognition.
Negative: decreases number sense/arithmetic literacy.
Positive: allows focus on the complex mathematical issues vs calculations
Recently a chatbot for an international shipping company, DPD, went rogue in a customer interaction. Name one of the (unplanned) things this chatbot did to the customer.
Told jokes
Swore at the customer
Criticised its company
Wrote poems about how bad it was