It is true that my fellow students embrace artificial intelligence – but this is what critics do not see Elsie McDwell

PEading about the role of artificial intelligence in higher education, the scene looks dark. Students Group cheating In our evaluation or open book, online tests using artificial intelligence tools, all the time We made ourselves stupid. The next generation of graduates, apparently, will complete their certificates without approaching critical thinking.

Given that my training course is fully examined through closed book tests, and I am concerned about the huge amounts of water and energy needed Power Ai DatacentresI avoid using ChatGPT. But in my experience, students see it as a widely acceptable tool in the learning process. Although discussions about artificial intelligence tend to focus on “cheating”, it is increasingly used to help research, or to help in the articles structure.

There are correct concerns about abuse and excessive use of LLMS models in education. But if you want to understand why many students resort to artificial intelligence, you must understand what brought us to this point – and the educational context that this plays.

In March 2020, I was about to reach the age of 15. When the news broke out that schools will be concluded as part of Kovid’s insurance, I remember the slogans of the eruptions in the corridors. When I celebrated what we all thought was only two weeks outside the school, I could not imagine the turmoil that would lead to my next three education.

That year, GCSES and A levels were canceled and replaced with degrees evaluated for teachers, which were characterized by those in private schools that already work well. After closing schools, and a long period of pickles, the then education secretary, Gavin Williamson, once again abolished in 2021. Fuji was in the level of 2023 the first to return to the “regular” exams-in England, at least-which led to a permeable campaign to inflation in the row left by many low degrees of what was expected.

At the same time, universities all over the country were also struggling with how students who were not physically returned on campus. The solution: open book, online assessments for papers that have not already been examined by courses. When the students of the lock years graduated, the university system is not immediately no longer to its pre -arrangements. Five years later, 70 % of universities It still uses some forms of evaluation online.

This is not because, as some will believe, the university has become very easy. These changes are in response to the fact that the vast majority of current home students did not have the typical experience of national exams. Looking at the wide time that we spent away from school during our general and years at the A level, there were parts of the curricula that we were never able to cover. But besides the missing content, the frequent decline in the government and the transition to coordinating our exams from 2020 on the rising, was born uncertainty that continued to form how to evaluate us-even with our progress to higher education.

In my first year of university, half of my exams were online. This year, they all returned to handwritten book reviews. Either way, I haven’t had a confirmation about coordinating my tests until the school year. In one case, third year students sitting the same paper that was examined on the Internet, and in a longer period of time, were examined to admit that they did not reveal a handwritten test at any time during their testimony.

Thus, when Chatgpt was released in 2022, it fell in a university system that passes through a transitional stage, characterized by more uncertainty. The university’s exams are already inconsistent and widely changing, between universities and within the colleges themselves – only increases the attractiveness of artificial intelligence for students who felt on the back foot, and makes it difficult to discover its use and monitoring.

Even if this is not for failed exams, being a student is more expensive than ever: 68 % of students have part -time jobs, which is the highest rate in a decade. Student loan system, too, leaves those of the poorest backgrounds with the largest amounts of debt. I am already part of the first year to have to pay our loans over 40 years, instead of 30 years. This is before the tuition fees again.

Students have less time than ever to be students already. Artificial intelligence is a tool to save time. If students do not have time or resources to fully interact with their studies, it is because there is something wrong with the university system itself.

The use of artificial intelligence is mushrooms because it is suitable and fast, yes, but also because of the uncertainty that prevails around the exams after custody, as well as the increasing financial accuracy of students. Universities need to choose the exam format and adhere to it. If this includes training courses or open books tests, there must be clarity about the form of “proportional use” of artificial intelligence. For better or worse, artificial intelligence is here to stay. Not because students are lazy, but because what it means to be a student changes at the same speed as technology.