By Russel Wettle,
Business Editor.
It seems as though artificial intelligence is everywhere nowadays. Every company wants to get in on the trend, and people find new uses for it every day. AI has quickly made its way into our everyday lives, including school. At Santa Rosa High School, AI is used by both students and teachers for a variety of purposes.
Artificial intelligence is when a computer is able to perform tasks, normally associated with human intelligence. It is used in many tools and applications that are easily accessible to students and teachers. Arguably too accessible.
Perhaps the most obvious is the infamous ChatGPT, but other large language models such as Google Gemini or xAI are often used. Since the release of ChatGPT to the general public in 2022, it has become well-known as a tool for performing tasks that users don’t want to do themselves; in school, it’s used by students and educators alike to find information, create lesson plans and write anything it is told to with minimal work by the user. Over time, AI has improved, making it even easier to use and harder to detect.
Students aren’t just using AI to cheat on their essays. Many students use it as a tool in order to more effectively gather information. “I only use AI when I do not know what the teacher is asking of me in an assignment. [I use] mostly Google AI because it’s faster than looking through sources [when I need quick information],” said sophomore Anthony Tusa. Tusa believes that AI is a great tool and best used to summarize and acquire information, but only when absolutely necessary. “I wouldn’t call AI bad, to be honest. It’s good if used correctly,” said Tusa.
AI may be useful, but should it be used at our school? Sophomore Ava Luis thinks it is absolutely unacceptable. “I can’t justify the usage of AI for students at all. It’s, in my opinion, unnecessary and wasteful,” said Luis, who believes that using these programs are “a shortcut that stunts students’ abilities to conduct confirmable research by themselves.” Luis said she has seen many students using AI for their schoolwork, causing them to get a good grade without putting in honest work.
No one can deny the usefulness of AI in getting work done, and it continues to be used for a variety of reasons by a wide range of people around us. Whether you like it or not, artificial intelligence seems to be here to stay at SRHS.
