Expert System (AI) is transforming education while making learning more available but likewise stimulating debates on its impact.
While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for boosting their knowing experience, speakers are raising issues about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens scholastic integrity, specifically with many students not able to defend their assignments or given works.
Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a lecturer at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, expressed disappointment over the growing dependence on AI-generated responses amongst students recounting a current experience he had.
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"I provided a task to my MBA trainees, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% sent the precise very same responses. These students did not even understand each other, but they all utilized the same AI tool to generate their actions," he said.
He kept in mind that this pattern prevails amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees however is particularly concerning in part-time and range knowing programs.
"AI is a severe obstacle when it concerns assignments. Many trainees no longer believe critically-they just go on the internet, generate responses, and send," he added.
Surprisingly, some speakers are likewise implicated of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both teachers and trainees turn to AI for higgledy-piggledy.xyz benefit rather than intellectual rigor.
This dispute raises critical questions about the role of AI in scholastic stability and student advancement.
According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million regular monthly active users in January 2023, only one country had actually released policies on generative AI as of July 2023.
As of December 2024, ChatGPT had more than 300 million individuals using the AI chatbot weekly and 1 billion messages sent out every day around the world.
Decline of academic rigor
University lecturers are increasingly worried about trainees submitting AI-generated assignments without truly understanding the content.
Dr. Felix Echekoba, a speaker at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his issues to Nairametrics about students increasingly counting on ChatGPT, only to battle with addressing fundamental questions when evaluated.
"Many trainees copy from ChatGPT and send polished assignments, but when asked basic concerns, they go blank. It's frustrating due to the fact that education is about discovering, not just passing courses," he said.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu mentioned that the increasing variety of superior graduates can not be totally credited to AI but confessed that even high-performing trainees utilize these tools.
"A superior trainee is a superior trainee, AI or not, but that doesn't imply they do not cheat. The advantages of AI may be peripheral, but it is making trainees dependent and less analytical," he stated.
- Another speaker, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a various issue that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
"It's not just students utilizing AI lazily. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course outlines, marking plans, and even test questions with AI without reviewing them. Students in turn use AI to generate responses. It's a cycle of laziness and it is eliminating genuine knowing," he regreted.
Students' viewpoints on use
Students, on the other hand, state AI has enhanced their knowing experience by making scholastic products more easy to understand and available.
- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration trainee at Unilag, shared how AI has considerably assisted her knowing by breaking down complex terms and menwiki.men providing summaries of prolonged texts.
"AI helped me comprehend things more easily, specifically when handling complicated subjects," she explained.
However, she recalled a circumstances when she used AI to send her task, only for her lecturer to right away acknowledge that it was created by ChatGPT and reject it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad effect.
- Bryan Okwuba, who recently graduated with a superior degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, firmly believes that his scholastic success wasn't due to any AI tool. He attributes his exceptional grades to actively appealing by asking questions and focusing on areas that lecturers highlight in class, as they are often shown in examination concerns.
"It's all about being present, paying attention, and using the wealth of knowledge shared by my colleagues," he stated,
- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing trainee at UNIZIK, confesses to periodically copying directly from ChatGPT when dealing with multiple due dates.
"To be truthful, there are times I copy straight from ChatGPT when I have several due dates, and I understand I'm guilty of that, the majority of times the lecturers don't get to read through them, however AI has also assisted me learn quicker."
Balancing AI's function in education
Experts believe the option depends on AI literacy; mentor trainees and lecturers how to use AI as a learning help instead of a faster way.
- Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, highlighted the combination of AI into Nigeria's education system, stressing the importance of a well balanced approach that keeps human participation while harnessing AI to improve discovering results.
"As we navigate the quickly evolving landscape of Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is important that we prioritise human firm in education. We need to make sure that AI improves, rather than changes, teachers' essential function in forming young minds," he stated
Dorcas Akintade, a cybersecurity transformation specialist, addressed growing issues relating to the use of synthetic intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and their potential dangers to the academic system.
- She acknowledged the benefits of AI, however, forum.pinoo.com.tr emphasized the requirement for caution in its use.
- Akintade highlighted the increasing hesitance amongst educators and schools towards including AI tools in discovering environments. She recognized two primary reasons why AI tools are discouraged in academic settings: security threats and plagiarism. She explained that AI tools like ChatGPT are trained to react based on user interactions, which might not align with the expectations of teachers.
"It is not taking a look at it as a tutor," Akintade said, vmeste-so-vsemi.ru describing that AI doesn't accommodate specific mentor methods.
Plagiarism is another concern, as AI pulls from existing data, typically without proper attribution
"A lot of individuals need to understand, like I said, this is information that has been trained on. It is not simply bringing things out from the sky. It's bringing info that some other people are fed into it, which in essence suggests that is another individual's paperwork," she warned.
- Additionally, Akintade highlighted an early concern in AI advancement understood as "hallucination," where AI tools would create info that was not factual.
"Hallucination suggested that it was bringing out details from the air. If ChatGPT might not get that info from you, it was going to make one up," she described.
She suggested "grounding" AI by supplying it with particular information to avoid such mistakes.
Navigating AI in Education
Akintade argued that banning AI tools outright is not the solution, especially when AI provides an opportunity to leapfrog conventional academic approaches.
- She believes that regularly reinforcing crucial details assists individuals remember and prevent making errors when confronted with difficulties.
"Immersion brings conversion. When you tell people the very same thing over and over once again, when they are about to make the mistakes, then they'll remember."
She also empasized the need for clear policies and procedures within schools, keeping in mind that many schools should attend to individuals and procedure elements of this use.
- Prof. Nwaogwugwu has turned to in-class tasks and tests to counter AI-driven academic dishonesty.
"Now, I mainly utilize tasks to make sure trainees provide original work." However, he acknowledged that managing big classes makes this technique hard.
"If you set complex concerns, students will not be able to use AI to get direct responses," he explained.
He emphasized the requirement for universities to train speakers on crafting test questions that AI can not quickly fix while acknowledging that some speakers struggle to counter AI abuse due to an absence of technological awareness. "Some lecturers are analogue," he said.
- Nigeria launched a draft National AI Strategy in August 2024, concentrating on ethical AI advancement with fairness, transparency, accountability, and personal privacy at its core.
- UNESCO in a report calls for the regulation of AI in education, advising institutions to examine algorithms, information, and outputs of generative AI tools to guarantee they satisfy ethical requirements, secure user data, and filter unsuitable material.
- It worries the need to assess the long-term effect of AI on crucial skills like believing and imagination while producing policies that align with ethical frameworks. Additionally, UNESCO advises carrying out age restrictions for GenAI usage to protect younger students and protect vulnerable groups.
- For governments, it recommended embracing a coordinated nationwide technique to regulating GenAI, consisting of developing oversight bodies and aligning regulations with existing data security and personal privacy laws. It emphasizes evaluating AI threats, enforcing stricter guidelines for high-risk applications, and guaranteeing national information ownership.
