I remember the first time I used AI for something school-related, I told myself it was just to get a starting point, just to understand the topic better, I'd still do the work myself, obviously. And then I submitted the thing and it was barely mine, I think about that sometimes.
AI is everywhere now and pretending otherwise is a waste of energy. It writes, it explains, it summarises, it solves. You can put an assignment prompt in and get a full essay out in thirty seconds, And if we are being honest, a lot of students are doing exactly that, not because they are lazy, but because the option exists, the deadline is tonight, and nobody is watching.
But here's what I think we're losing without realising it.
Struggle is actually useful. I know that sounds like something a teacher would put on a motivational poster and it sounds annoying but it's true. The part where you sit with a concept you don't understand yet and fight through it until it clicks that part is building something in you. That's where the actual learning lives. When AI skips you past that part, you don't just save time. You miss the point entirely. And the point was never just the answer. The point was becoming someone who could find the answer.
That said, I don't think AI is the enemy, I genuinely don't...... It depends completely on how you're using it, Using AI to understand a difficult concept better? Smart, Using it to break down a topic before you go deeper into it yourself? That's actually a good study tool. Using it to generate ideas you then develop in your own voice and with your own thinking? Fine. That's not so different from reading a textbook.
But using it to replace your thinking entirely? That's where it becomes a problem. Because at some point the test comes, the real world comes, the moment that requires you comes and AI won't be in the room.
The line for me is this: AI should be a tool that makes you more capable, not a crutch that covers for your incapability. If you're using it and still growing, still thinking, still producing things that are genuinely yours you're doing it right. If you're using it because you simply cannot be bothered to try, that's a conversation you need to have with yourself about why you're even in school.
We also need to acknowledge that institutions have to catch up, the rules around AI use in academic settings are still all over the place, some schools ban it completely, others haven't said anything at all, that silence is doing students no favours because it creates a grey area that is too easy to abuse.
AI is not making us smarter or dumber by default. It's amplifying whatever we already are.
If you're curious, it makes you more curious. If you're avoiding growth, it just makes the avoidance easier.
The tool is not the problem. What you choose to build with it is.
Images generated with Gemini AI
