Generative AI and Education

Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can learn from and mimic large amounts of data to create content such as text, images, music, videos, code, and more, based on inputs or prompts. https://www.huit.harvard.edu/ai, Copyright © 2025 The President and Fellows of Harvard College
Use of Generative AI in education: what is at stake?
Generative AI is a giant shortcut that enables students to “write” essays without exercising any critical thinking whatsoever. Students will therefore not learn critical thinking skills, will sacrifice cognitive development and higher-level cognitive skills. Due to the lack of regulation there are major concerns about plagiarism, cheating and other ethical challenges. Students are using GenAI to write content and then submitting it as their own original work because it “saves time”. What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing? The demise of the English paper will end a long intellectual tradition, but it’s also an opportunity to reexamine the purpose of higher education.
By Hua Hsu, June 30, 2025
 
Although there is a need for teacher training for AI use in education, there is also an uptick in its use in grading and student feedback. The claim is that more personalized student learning can be achieved by using AI but there is also the potential loss of meaningful teacher-student interactions which will result in a loss of mentoring opportunities and individualized teaching programs. There will be more “teaching to the test” and the high cost of GenAI programs for schools will result in an expansion of educational inequality.
 
Dependence on Generative AI can impact social skills and emotional development of young people resulting in Isolation, lack of trust and a non-understanding of the complex nature of human interactions and identity. While GenAI can be a helpful tool it can also offer a sense of false companionship. There has been a growing trend toward emotional isolationism and reduced social interactions. According to Psychology Today, …one in four young adults believe AI could replace human-to-human romantic relationships. One in ten is open to having an AI friend.  Reuters  recently reported  that Meta is facing intense scrutiny about its AI policy that allows chatbots to hold ‘sensual’ conversations with children. Meta has disabled the feature but admitted that …the company’s enforcement was inconsistent.
 
What about the future of academic research? The lack of regulation and transparency when using GenAI can introduce algorithmic bias by generating false data, resulting in false research and false conclusions.  A study by the Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2023, …investigated the capabilities of current AI language models in generating high-quality fraudulent medical articles. The study hypothesized that modern AI models can create highly convincing fraudulent papers that can easily deceive readers and even experienced researchers. The result of the study found that the AI language model can create a highly convincing fraudulent article that resembled a genuine scientific paper in terms of word usage, sentence structure, and overall composition. Regarding Copyright Law and Intellectual Privacy, U.S. courts to date have not recognized copyright in works that lack a human author—including works created autonomously by AI systems. https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/LSB10922
 
There are potential privacy violations regarding the misuse of private user data at educational facilities: inadequate data security, sharing sensitive student information with non-educational organizations without consent, and weak or non-existent regulations. Current privacy protections for students are FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) and COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The Stanford Cyber Policy Center article, Regulating Under Uncertainty has noted that the EU is leading in AI regulation, while the U.S.  has no specific federal regulation for GenAI. GenAI is already being used heavily in multiple ways by the US Department of Education. California SB 896 (Generative Artificial Intelligence Accountability Act) is enacting AI-related legislation, focusing on areas like algorithmic discrimination, ethics, accountability and transparency.
 
How does all this have an impact? Relying too heavily on GenAI will result in a society of human beings who cannot do or make anything anymore. Why bother? It will likely result in the loss of individual creativity and critical thinking skills, it will promote social isolation, people will become inured to ethical considerations, and we can all look forward to a general cultural deterioration. Without regulation it will creep into the fabric of our intellectual community.  Its acceptance could very well indicate that as a culture we’ve decided we already know everything we ever need to know. The current Administration has made it clear that there are no boundaries on AI as long as everyone avoids “wokeness”.
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As a bookseller, when I see young people come into the bookstore to purchase and read books that perhaps not everyone agrees with, I feel hope that we will not succumb and so give up control of our human independence. My purpose here is not to be anti-technology. My purpose is to remind people that you need to read books for yourself and to think critically. GenAI is out there waiting and bad actors are out there waiting too.

What I'm Currently Reading:
Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov
The Monkey Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey