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AI and Analog Education [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-09-04

Classes started yesterday. I did a goofy “dad joke” sort of thing. I told the undergrads we were going to incorporate a technology which will provide for a direct brain to output interface allowing them to produce completely original content. It was going to really let them express their individuality. It gives them direct access to a highly complex and adaptable processing unit capable of highly abstract reasoning. This technology was completely safe with regard to their personal information and that there would be no need for a VPN. I assured them that they wouldn’t even need an internet connection. At that point I said “Allow me to introduce you to The Pencil” and I raised one high in the air for all to see.

It was the first day, we talk about AI. Thing is, they know cutting and pasting from ChatGPT is cheating and lying. They might make their choice and take their chances. Ive successfully used “trojan horses” and other tactics to trick the AI in order to expose students. But maybe the cheating works and maybe it doesn’t and they fail. But most students aren’t cheating, at least not intentionally. They do think it is wrong. They understand they should not do this.

They don’t understand how the problem is what they think they are doing “to save time”.

At the beginning I tell them about the MIT study, which I do not think has been officially peer reviewed yet and the sample size is a bit small for my tastes. Using AI can cause them to lose cognitive abilities. If they use AI, they need to go “Brain>AI>Brain” and not simply “AI>Brain”. We discussed how they needed to do the course reading first and then try to answer the assignment on their own. Using the AI AFTER doing that might be helpful. They can ask if their idea is a good response. They can read what the AI has said, which will likely reinforce what they were supposed to have read already and possibly phrase it in way that makes things clearer for them. They use the AI ideas to finalize their assignment and hand it in. The AI has now been like a kind of tutor, a helpful assistant. Citations from the assigned text with proper bibliographic references still required. (AI gets that one wrong A LOT)

But the danger lies in going to the AI first without trying to come up with the answer on their own. Using the AI to “brainstorm”. They ask the AI for an example or maybe even a few examples. They read what the AI has to say and not really the assigned text (maybe they skimmed it for 5 minutes). They construct their answer from there, not even realizing how much they are subconsciously copying the words from the AI. In this process, they are offloading or outsourcing the cognitive act of thinking of the example. They get no practice in reasoning. That ability is not developed.

This is the key: the students who rely on AI are not developing their skills in reasoning and logic nor are the working much on their memory or the skill to focus on a long text and make sense of it. They don’t well retain what they read. They are not learning.

It’s the beginning of the semester. We had to talk about ultra processed writing. Its like ultra processed food, but in essay form. It is how they might use a service like Grammarly or Co-Pilot to alter their writing. These programs offer word choice and check sentence logic and reform one’s ideas. A student this summer told me she used it to check her “tone and flow”. Another said she used it to translate from her first language into English. This creates the most sterile and bland writing. I tell them that these services turn their ideas and phrasing into the most predictable ways that it can be. Their own voice disappears. I emphasize how it removes their individuality and that they are simply not expressing themselves (“You are not expressing You”). Everything becomes the same. And that they are not giving me writing that they have done if the AI alters it into something else.

It’s the same issue. They aren’t practicing their skills in logic and reasoning. They aren’t practicing expressing themselves in writing, which often has a direct connection to how they can express themselves in speech. I have to tell them “The brain is a muscle, use it or lose it”. And the solution is to use the internet/computer less and force everyone to rely on their brains more.

I know Im not alone. I think there is a silent revolution in education going on this fall. More in-class work. Less computer/internet based. More actual writing by hand. The reintroduction of the pencil.

I know AI can be a useful tool. I know Ai can process information and discover patterns that we cannot see. Ai can be a great resource or even an assistant for a professional in their field. But a learning process is very much about the student learning to do it without the assistant. The student is supposed to be “the assistant”. “The assistant” doesn’t get an assistant, because the professional-assistant or teacher-student relationships are what transform the assistant/student into the professional. It’s just a variation of the master-apprentice relationship so ingrained in human-kind which has stood the test of time for millennia.

Mostly it is people who know nothing about education that promote AI in education. The public discussions by the tech folks and GOPers and the former soft-core porn models are motivated by money. The dominant ideology is that of AI being a necessity. Maybe some of this is legitimate educators committed to teaching all things STEM and technology. But mostly it’s the folks who make money off of Ai telling people how great AI is and how it is going to revolutionize education.

But they cant stop me from handing out pencils. Blue books too.

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