Keep AI Out of the Classroom

Graphic by Vecteezy

Think back to 2013. Perhaps a wave of nostalgia and comfort washes over you and reminds you of simpler times. Maybe you remember playing the Wii with your cousins or even playing kickball in your P.E. class. But what you definitely don’t remember are shitty AI images bombarding you every second of every day.

Now think about 2025. It’s probably been months since you’ve gone an entire day without seeing something AI-generated, and personally, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of seeing human creativity be stolen by a computer program and screwed up into a seven-fingered mess. I’m sick of hearing people say it’s okay that they didn’t study for an exam because their professor’s letting them use AI on it. And I’m especially sick of hearing the phrase “I’ll just ask ChatGPT”.

So, what changed? Why have we become so comfortable with admitting that we need a computer to do basic tasks for us? Well, a study from Cornell found that up to 80% of students in higher education use AI for their schoolwork because of a positive perception of AI’s educational value.

This positive perception can be seen by the noticeable change in the way that SU professors approach AI usage in the classroom. A few years ago, it used to be taboo to mention that you had even thought about using AI to help you with your homework. Now, you have professors encouraging students to use AI on anything and everything as long as some of your own thoughts shine through (but we know that doesn’t happen). Because of this lax attitude surrounding AI, students have been able to continue to use it more and more frequently with almost no repercussions for their actions, even if a large amount of the information within generative AI is misleading at best, and straight-up wrong at worst.

Unfortunately, the university itself is encouraging these behaviors. As many people have noticed, the required anti-hazing videos for this school year featured many different AI-generated images. There’s no excuse for this sudden use of AI, as past videos from the university featured virtually zero AI generated images, since the policies surrounding AI in the classroom were more strict.

So, professors, please consider the damage you’re doing to your students' long-term success every time that you allow AI into your classroom. And students, know that there’s no shame in handing in an essay that has a couple of grammatical errors. It’s those errors that give your writing more heart. They tell an infinitely better story than a grammatically perfect one from a machine that’s trained on Reddit threads and Wikipedia.

Cornell Study: https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.00717