Usage of AI in schools - advantages and disadvantages - Toastmasters Table Topics

My name is Geoff from https://geoffmobile.com , and today I will share my thoughts on the topic: what are the good things and the bad things about AI that I've noticed.

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First of all, I'd like to start with the positives. When I was in elementary school, I did all my math questions by pen and paper—or pencil and paper. I did not have access to a calculator or a computer, say, in grade four or grade five. So when we got our first calculator given to us around grade seven, I was so excited. I could finally enter my math questions into this machine, and it always gave me the correct answer. I didn't have to think so much anymore about doing math.

A similar thing is happening now with students who are getting access to AI. Before AI, they used their minds to answer questions, and perhaps it was more challenging. They could not necessarily get the best grade because it took a lot of work to learn how to write, how to think, and how to do math. With AI so available, students are using it as a shortcut to answer their homework questions. This means they are bypassing the learning process of how to actually understand and learn concepts.

So while AI is a very amazing tool—as Arthur was saying—for writing emails or improving your life, it also, if used incorrectly, can cause people to avoid learning some actual skills they need to learn. This is a really cautionary tale for any student using AI to do their homework: you're actually missing out on the whole point of the homework, which is to learn something with your own brain, not just learn how to write a prompt.

Even though AI will become so commonplace that whenever we need to answer a question, it will always be there for us—just like we can bring up a calculator on our desktop anytime to answer a math question—to actually understand how things work and have a good sense of knowledge in your own brain is essential for navigating the world. Let’s say AI goes down; you won't be able to do the most basic things.

Thanks for the opportunity.