A high schooler writes about AI tools in the classroom

This take from a Hermione-type High School senior shed next to zero new light on the subject. Yes, we know AI is redefining school and jobs and daily life. The perspective of an obnoxious A+ type student isn't helping, especially because you kind of can read between the lines that she isn't friends with these kids using AI, which would give her a deeper perspective of why and how they are using AI.

Is this what The Atlantic has come down to, publishing a complain-y piece by the class president?

EDIT: For anyone struggling with my criticism of the article, I very much agree that there is a problem of AI in education. Her suggestion which is "maybe more oral exams and less essays?" I'm sure has never been considered by teachers around the world rolls eyes.

As for how to tackle this, I think the only solution is accept the fact that AI is going nowhere and integrate it into the class. Show kids in the class how to use AI properly, compare what different AI models say, and compare what they say to what scholars and authors have written, to what kids in the past have written in their essays.

You don't have to fight AI to instill critical thinking in kids. You can embrace it to teach them its limitations.

Struggling to understand what you're saying but it sounds like you're making two points:

* We should dismiss the concerns in TFA because the author is... A good and conscientious student? Who is both unpopular and also the class president?

* The students who are outsourcing their thinking, or at least their work, to LLMs, have good reasons for this and the reasons are not addressed in the piece

The first point is at best a pure ad hominem and at worst a full blown assault on conscientiousness and actually doing the work. I think the class president and good student is a better authority than the cheater. I'm very disturbed by the recent trend on HN and the wider world to justify any shortcut taken for personal advancement. We need people to value substance, not just image...

The second point is irrelevant -- we don't have do both-sideism in every piece. But also even if they do have good reasons to cheat, this creates an instant race to the bottom where now everyone must cheat. This is why they do doping checks in professional sports, except this is much higher stakes

I'm wondering why is this being published in the first place. It's not an interesting or illuminating perspective, it's a pretentious student telling us nothing new.

I gave no opinions on AI, yet I do think it's very much a problem. This article presents neither good ideas to tackle it, nor an insightful perspective on the problem.

The point of publishing it seems to me to be "kids in classrooms also think this is a problem". The subject matter is often talked about in the upper echelons and among adults, it's good to see a kid's prospective. It's equivalent to an essay by a kid saying they also struggle with the effects of social media -- it creates a broader consensus environment, helping to build buy in for a shared paradigm