CKHS English teacher Jessica Hanthorn talking to a student. (Amy Ngo)

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been quickly developing over the past few years. Its involvement with the general public, art, and academia has affected numerous industries. As AI has become easier to access, its role in education has become more and more prevalent, resulting in a contrast of opinions. 

Over the past few years, AI has quickly evolved with its generative performance, and questions of ethics have been fostered, especially within the education field, and its convenience promoted toward students. AI takes data from numerous online sources, analyzes them, and compacts information into a few paragraphs. 

Without providing or crediting sources or confirming information, it is deemed unethical to use as it passes information as an individual’s or doesn’t recognize it as someone else’s work. Putting aside possible defects and anonymity to the information, with how condensed it often is, it can often be seen as plagiarism in academic settings, as AI can pull quotes without any attribution, and the work would not be original to the individual inputting the prompt.

As AI has become more accessible to the public, educators have had to hone in on the possibility and prevention of AI use in their classrooms. While there might be a purpose or rationale to some student’s use, easy access from generative websites like ChatGPT or Jasper AI makes it that much easier for students to plagiarize and ignore the academic content.

“I have worry and proof [of AI use in the classroom,] and it has just been ramping up over the last few quarters,” Olympic College English Professor Candice Morrow said. “I think there are legitimate reasons to use AI. AI is a tool like any other tool, and can be phenomenal for the writing process, but in terms of academic integrity, students might use AI because they feel overwhelmed. […] They might also just use it because we’ve taught students that we appreciate a certain voice and style and diction, and maybe they feel that that’s the only way that they can perform to those standards.”

The Cougar Chronicle sent out an anonymous survey asking CKHS students numerous questions about their AI use. Out of over 60 responses, there has been a significant number of students at CKHS worried about inaccurate information and social bias from AI. AI Collects online data from humans, much of it being inaccurate or discriminatory. Although there are positives in little tasks, such as making practice tests, quick rubrics, or summarizing different texts, a larger issue can arise when AI is used improperly.

“A negative aspect of AI is that students should really have some education and how to use it in an ethical way,” CKHS English teacher Jessica Hanthorn said. “Last year when all this AI was just happening, schools decided, ‘should we ban AI, or should we teach students how to use it responsibly?’[…] I kind of think the important part is teaching how to use it in a responsible way, because when you graduate high school, you’re going to be expected to know how to use AI. […] I’ve seen students use it for cheating like, ‘ChatGPT, write me a full essay about xyz,’ chat GPT does it, and then they turn it in. It is negative, but there are positive things that AI can do, like check your grammar or help you study for a subject.”

AI became known as generative, often used to produce photos. However, the photos frequently fail to create the details of a real photograph. The lack of realism is sometimes evident through a really airbrushed look and overall impossible situations. Other times, it can be hard to catch and a closer inspection is needed. Missing limbs and inconsistent lighting are common signs of an AI generated photo. As AI has progressed, it has moved on to replicating other forms of art. 

“I think getting rid of the things that humans have already created is such a relapse,” CKHS freshman Lucy Best said, “ I don’t really agree with it, especially when it comes to art.”

Art itself, such as paintings, designs, or digital art is being cloned, more and more by AI. AI produced art seems to have many tangent lines, something human artists tend to try to avoid, and overall many inconsistencies compared to a human’s process of layering and editing. Art isn’t known for its income, and replacing real artists and their real creativity by AI, which takes data from photos and pre-released art to match a given prompt, not only lacks credit from where the data is taken, but also takes the humanity out of the humanities subjects.

Along with changing the realism of its images, The company that produces AI has also created song generators. While the song generators are newer, they have quickly advanced. Although AI generated music is less common, 25% of music artists use AI in their production process. Most artists who use AI for production are classified as ‘beginners.’ Less than 50% of music artists see AI as a beneficial tool. Due to AI there have been nonconsensual celebrities voices, like Scarlett Johansson’s, placed into AI apps and generators. While AI is rapidly growing and changing, several artists are incredibly concerned about the future of AI in music. In April of 2024, over 200 music artists signed an open letter against “predatory use of AI.”

AI can also be helpful to teachers. AI has taken its toll in the academic industry and has fostered many opinions, negative and positive. Positives of AI is the convenience of the tasks it can perform. 

“It can free up some of my time as a teacher to do more important things, connecting with students is super important,” Hanthorn said. 

The specifics of the ethics while using AI can get muddled, as can the exact definition of plagiarism. The opinion of CKHS freshmen Molly Lazzarini, gives a reason that provides some clarity. 

“If you’re using it for all your assignments to give you all your answers, you’re not learning from that,” Lazzarini said. 

When it comes to ethics, some teachers expect AI to be used in a manner that can improve writing but not hinder students’ growth as writers. Hanthorn has concerns if students are actually learning from AI, or if it is too easy to copy and paste. 

“I feel like students should really have some education on how to use it in an ethical way,” Hanthorn said. 

Best is one student that takes AI’s environmental impact into consideration.

“I think its environmental impacts could be changed,” Best said. “I think overall, the way people use it, especially if it’s exploiting others, is not okay.”

One of the impacts of common AI use is the amount of electricity it uses. The rise in energy from AI could cause a risk to power grids in Washington. Asking one question to an AI based search engine could use up as much as ten times more energy than an average Google search. When Microsoft began investments in AI with search engines, including ChatGPT, it caused 12.2 million tons of carbon dioxide to 17.1 million tons of carbon dioxide. 

AI has also been granted the capability to predict multiple weather conditions. Weather experts have seen this as a way for AI to help fight against climate change. Since AI is able to go through mass amounts of data quickly, it also has had more accurate weather predictions, similar to satellite images that are used to monitor climate change. The programmed software in AI for analyzing waste has also been used to precisely sort waste and recycling. 

While the mass utilization and accessibility of AI is fairly new, many things could come from artificial intelligence. Olympic College Professor, Dr. Justin Lewis, has had experience and done a great deal of research to what the future of AI could hold.

“I think people are going to build bots to do things for them and those kinds of tasks,” Lewis said. “The creation of Chat GPT’s GPTs and Gemini’s Gems (both mini-AI’s that people can program tasks to do) it is expected that many people will make them do mundane tasks, such as monitor eBay, and anytime a certain thing comes up, you automatically buy it.”

Since the 1950s, AI has been progressing as new innovations have taken shape. With the recent focus of AI, it has taken off, unlike ever before.

“It changes all the time,” Morrow said. “I think I’m on top of my research, and the next day, something new comes out. Unlike inventions that impacted writing, like the internet or texting, those inventions were a little slow for adoption, but generative AI, and these large language models came on the scene, and within three months, almost everyone had used one.”

While students have ideas on how AI could evolve in the coming years, it is impossible to tell exactly how its effect on society will take place. Although it can help us in many ways, such as mundane tasks, grammar, or punctuation errors, it can also harm us if improperly used, a common example being plagiarism, which hinders an individual’s development. With AI’s effect on power and students’ grades, only time will tell how its evolution will arise.