By Aaron Pan
It’s used everywhere, schools, offices, hospitals, factories, cars, and even fast food restaurants. It isn’t something you might expect, but it is definitely influential. It’s been used to treat patients with cancer, write essays, in your McDonald’s drive-thru, and even possibly this article. It’s not magic, it’s AI.
However, many people argue that artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t as good as it seems. Many use it for the wrong reasons. There have been mixed opinions and long debates on whether AI is necessary, or if it’s just a tool to help the younger generation become lazier. `
Principal Joey Gossett is a big skeptic of AI. Gossett believes that AI should be used in school settings, not for writing papers, but for helping to write papers. She and others are firm believers about AI being a resource and not a cheating device.
She sees AI as something “nice to have” but unnecessary. She believes that society would be better off without it.
There was a drastic change in school before and after AI. Ms. Gossett believes that some students have become too reliant on AI. Before AI was popular, she saw many students researching for their papers or plagiarizing from the Internet. Now, she sees many students using AI to write essays or to do the research for them.
On top of the misuse of AI that she has had to deal with, she is cautious about it. Ms. Gossett is open about her concerns.
“AI could do a lot through detecting voice, presence, and eventually just track your location,” Ms. Gossett said. “If someone’s misusing AI, could they find you for malicious purposes?”
It seems as if everyone, both young and old, is using AI. However, Ms. Gossett doesn’t let others influence her opinions and actions.
“I do not use AI,” she said. “I have three college degrees and I am happy to use what brainpower I have to complete my task. I have zero desire to have ChatGPT write anything for me.”
Unlike Ms. Gossett, sophomore Bryce Carmichael sees AI causing no harm to society and his future career. Carmichael, an aspiring sports medicine physician, believes that medical careers won’t be negatively influenced by AI.
“… with AI you can’t see what’s wrong with someone and their symptoms,” he said. “It’s unlikely my job will be gone because of AI.”
He doesn’t believe that AI will cause harm because it doesn’t have a physical form, and at the end of the day “…. it’s just a website on a computer.”
As a busy student-athlete, Carmichael receives an abundance of homework every night. When he struggles with his homework, he uses AI to help guide him toward the right direction.
“I use AI when I’m confused on math or chemistry and I need help on how to do the problem, not answering my question, but assisting me,” Carmichael said.
Some people are on the fence about AI. Junior Cergio Diaz is one of those people.
Diaz sometimes uses AI to help with his essays. He uses it to help him with grammar and punctuation in essays, but not his poetry work. Poetry is one area that Diaz claims he will never use AI for because he enjoys writing poetry and wants his work to be original.
He has expressed concerns about the safety of AI, in particular how close they are to imitating humans.
“Some of these AI’s are getting too real, making people look bad,” Diaz said. “Most celebrities are going to get screwed over by fake videos.”
He believes that AI videos are entertaining, but they shouldn’t exist because the bad outweighs the good. As long as the videos aren’t being used maliciously, Diaz doesn’t have any issues with it.
If he had to choose though, Diaz says society is better with AI.
“I think we’re better with AI, except for school,” Diaz said. “AI is good for normal people for their jobs. They can use AI for notes, business meetings, and calls. I think AI is especially useful for the older generations, if they know how to use it.”
Diaz doesn’t believe that AI should be used in school because then students don’t learn anything.
However, it’s not just students or teachers using AI. It’s musicians, painters, directors, photographers and more. AI is often found in the creative arts like music, painting, acting, and photography.
As of late, a particular band has been skyrocketing to fame. Popular band The Velvet Sundown has amassed millions of streams on popular music app Spotify. In a matter of months, the psychedelic-rock band amassed three albums and millions of fans.
The band released its debut album in June of this year. After the release of a second album, the band confessed that everything was created with the assistance of AI. The music, lyrics, photos, and even backstory were all made with the assistance of AI.
Many have criticized the authenticity of AI art. Although Spotify doesn’t require artists to declare whether their music contains AI, many have called for the music app to do so.
English teacher Ms. Craw is no stranger to AI, not just as an English teacher but also as an avid traveler and home chef. She often uses AI for cooking recipes and price-matching for traveling.
She believes that many people, not just students, misuse AI.
“AI should be used for generating ideas, topics, thoughts, premises for what you’re doing and for things that make our lives easier,” Ms. Craw said. “Definitely not what we’re actually trying to learn.”
Ms. Craw feels as if society as a whole relies on AI too much. She believes that we don’t Google or research anymore to get answers to our questions. Now, people are used to asking AI and getting instant answers.
While there isn’t a clear or instant answer on whether AI is good or bad, only the future generations will know when the time arrives.
