The history of technology in education shows that there is really no quick fix. It is true that when calculators first appeared many worried about using it as a substitute for thinking. More recently is the concern over the use of smartphones. And yet, in the cycle of history, when each new technology arrives, it really doesn’t seem to improve education, but neither does it seem to harm it. In fact, technology may more realistically serve as an amplifier of already existing individual differences among students.
Earlier this year, Rose Horowitch published a widely read Atlantic piece titled “The end of reading is here,” and recently some UC students seem to have large gaps in their math preparation, even though they have been admitted to a top college. If people have reduced their reading, this isn’t a good sign, as I would argue that reading great works is important for improved writing, and writing is often a reflection of thinking.
So where does this leave us with the rise of AI use in education? James Flynn—who is known for the supposed rise in IQ due to what he argued was the complexification of society and our environment—often noted that humans were getting smarter because we trained our brains in the mental gym of our lives, which is getting increasingly more complex. But will AI help us train our brains, or will it make us lazier? Ted Chiang, in the article titled “Why A.I. isn’t going to make art,” noted that “Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.”
And at least two recent research studies seem to confirm Chiang’s point.
The first study—published in a peer reviewed journal—is titled “ChatGPT as a cognitive crutch.” The author Andre Barcaui conducted a randomized controlled trial of ChatGPT’s impact on knowledge retention among undergraduate students. Participants were randomly assigned to an AI assisted study group and a traditional study group and knowledge retention was assessed by a surprise test 45 days after learning. From the abstract: “Students who used ChatGPT scored significantly lower on the retention test (57.5 % correct) compared to those who studied traditionally (68.5 % correct), t (83) = −3.19, p = .002, Cohen’s d = 0.68. This suggests that unrestricted ChatGPT use impaired long-term retention, likely by reducing the cognitive effort that supports durable memory.”
The second study—currently a working paper—is titled “The generative AI learning penalty.” The authors David Stromberg, Victor Lei, and Yanhui Wu write in their abstract: “Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative AI affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered AI adoption in a difference-in-differences design. AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys.”
Even though the history of technology suggests that each new technology may not necessarily make us stupid, as Nicholas Carr argued about Google awhile back, past technologies have not been Artificial General Intelligence—which is meant to be a general problem solver or thinker. We can still choose to use the technology in ways that can augment our own human intelligence, such as speeding up coding or other monotonous tasks in our lives. But we also can choose to use the technology to direct how we think or even largely replace our thinking.
