The Moral Use of Tools
How we use a tool is totally our responsibility.
I was reading a very interesting article about the widespread use of and implications of AI. The author asks the question, "What is an academic credential worth if it only means you were good at ChatGpt?" The implications are interesting, but the answer to the direct question is a simple, "not much."
But the part that's catching my interest now is this passage containing an "I don't blame the students for cheating" caveat:
And to be abundantly clear, this isn’t the fault of the students - in a winner-takes-all economy, it must be extraordinarily difficult to resist the allure of something like an AI homework machine.
I do. Yes, there's lots of blame to go around. But surely the student is responsible for the fact that he used AI or didn't, used it to do his homework for him or didn't.
Students, like everyone else, should stand up as best they can for what is right, even as the crowd around them chooses the easier wrong.
I agree with the principle that tools aren't inherently good or bad. A knife isn't bad. But if you harm an innocent person with it, you have done a bad thing. The Internet isn't inherently good or bad. But if you use it to degrade human beings, you have done a bad thing. AI isn't bad, but if you use it to avoid all challenge at school and do your work for you, you've done a bad thing.
The environmental argument doesn't work either. Just because cheating is widespread doesn't mean that you should cheat or else get left behind. Find another path, and stick to what you know is right. You hopefully heard your mom repine in your youth, "If everyone jumped off a cliff, would you do it?" The bandwagon effect of AI is big. Adult people who should know better are using AI for things, like cheating, that is bad. The crowd of people doing the same thing has become their justification: "If I don't do this, I won't keep up with the class." "If I don't do this, I won't keep up with my coworkers." "If I don't do this, I won't get that job."
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
AI is hot right now. There's a lot of "use it or be a loser" talk. I mean, whatever. But, at least don't ignore, recreate or go against good morals when you use it.