Teachers vs. AI
Teachers vs. AI
Sabe Hernandez Rodriguez
The modern age of technology is inescapable, even more so with the use of Artificial Intelligence (Ai). When you use your phone to scroll through Instagram or any sort of social media, the algorithm uses an AI to sort through what interests you to build your “For You” page. Ai is used in a lot of places. I have very negative opinions of AI as it lacks any human emotion or any sort of effort, typing a prompt for an AI to do all the work is not art or hard work, it’s just lazy. However, one thing I’ve been thinking about recently is what teachers think of the use of Ai in their classroom and their opinion of Ai overall. I see that English teachers have opinions of AI the use of it
I asked Mr. Roche-Baron, a Flagstaff High School Dual Enrollment English teacher, how he feels about Artificial Intelligence, if he allows Ai, and his opinions of it. He says, “I am really divided. On the one hand, many jobs require it. We're facing unprecedented job losses, and the jobs that remain are largely low-tech or high-tech and require AI. AI is not going away (as much as I wish it would). There are also some fabulous tools out there to help students learn. I use Grammarly daily.” This does make sense because there are various uses for AI. Some good, Some not-so-good. His response to the question of if he’d allow the use of AI in his class and he gave a rather interesting answer, “I do allow a limited amount of it. How could you not? Spell check is AI. Grammarly is AI. Speech-to-text and text-to-speech are all great for students who need that support. If you mean LLM AI? I won't say never, but it has to be part of the lesson plan's objectives, and students still have to learn from that day's experience.”
One last question is what he thinks of AI in general he says, I hate it. Mostly. Like any technology, it has both benefits and drawbacks, but it's contributing to some of the worst job losses we've seen since the Great Depression. It's destroying jobs in graphic design and other creative jobs. It's leading to massive brain rot and the hollowing out of the humanities. It's creating deep fakes that make us all wonder what reality even is.” This is, in my opinion a rather valid response as, he is right, I remember when AI had trouble with certain things when generating scenes and images but now sometimes it’s hard to differentiate between reality and AI.
As much as AI can be a tool in classrooms they can also can prove to be annoying to English teachers. What is the point of school work and learning when you get a machine that is capable of error to do it for you and not learning anything.