Comment by joshAg
2 hours ago
Why do you think you didn't do similar when you were a student? We've seen this exact issue with other technology before: calculators for math; typewriters and then word processors for writing assignments; audio books for literacy. In those cases we've collectively realized there's a benefit in getting the manual skill and understanding how to use it before shortcutting things with the technology, even if most of the time you'll just end up using the technology. My best guess is that for most people in those classes who failed because of ai use, they don't care about the understanding (usually) required to get a good grade, they just care about the grade itself and the doors that opens for them.
It's because modern AI promises to relieve you of the tedium, leaving you to consider the important things like higher structure. It actually does deliver on this, but in contrast to older tools, it is unlimited in scope.
A calculator - let's expand this to maps, thesauruses, dictionaries, and other lookup tools - was used for a pretty narrow set of problems, and you had to transcribe the result to whatever context you needed.
An AI can be all the calculators together, and transport the output of one to the input of the next. You're meant to have the overview, but it's just so enticing to let it simply do that as well.