By Talia Halstuch, Staff Writer
Artificial Intelligence (AI): the phenomena you’ve seen everywhere. In school, in the news, on social media, AI is all over. But what does AI mean for our future?
In regards to the workforce, AI may be implemented into many current professions. The key for professionals is to manage to adapt around AI. If you learn how to use AI to your advantage, while still using your own skills which AI can not replicate, you will succeed in the workforce. For example, you may use AI to draft an email to save time. However, for greater aspects of your job, people must not rely on AI and instead use their own knowledge. A doctor, for example, should not be using AI to diagnose, and a lawyer should not use AI to write a case. This is because AI is not currently foolproof. If you do use AI for greater tasks like these, you must use your own knowledge to confirm that the information from AI is legitimate. A recent example of over-reliance on AI can be seen with the recent story of a lawyer from New York City who used ChatGPT to find relevant cases and ended up citing fabricated cases made up by AI.
He ultimately faced major consequences for citing fabricated sources as the basis for his own trial. ChatGPT can not replace your mind. If you rely on it to do your job, you may end up in a situation like the lawyer. However, if you use AI to enhance your daily tasks, and double check it for accuracy, it can be an extremely useful tool.
How could AI affect education? One of the benefits of AI in education is that it can analyze an individual student’s performance and customize lesson plans and work for the student based on his/her strengths and weaknesses. Another benefit is that there is 24/7 support for students in need. Any time of the day, a student can ask their question to ChatGPT, or other AI sites. This can be a very useful tool for students when doing homework. However, there are also some disadvantages of AI in education. Highschool and college students have been using AI to write their papers and assignments, often going against their school’s honor code. In the academic year of 2022-2023, 30% of college students were reported to have used ChatGPT to write their assignments. This is causing a clear ethical issue in education. How can you, a college student, use AI to your academic advantage? Do not ask it to write you a whole essay. Instead, use it for ideas, small insights, or to help you figure out how to complete an assignment. Then, use your own ideas and words to write your actual assignments. You do not want to be at a disadvantage of not using AI at all, as there are many clear benefits to using it, but be sure to do so in an ethical manner.
With anything new, there are many questions of how it will affect our futures. Here, we can see how AI is beginning to adapt into the workforce and education. What comes next, only time will tell.