Impact of Overusing ChatGPT on Education

In an era where technology is increasingly integrated into education, the use of AI-powered tools

like ChatGPT has become commonplace. While these technologies offer several benefits, such as

quick access to information and assistance, it’s essential to address the often-overlooked negative

impacts they can have on the quality of education. In this discussion, we’ll explore how an

overreliance on ChatGPT may detrimentally affect students, teachers, and the educational system

as a whole. Overusing it to complete assignments can hinder a student’s learning and critical

thinking skills. While it’s fine to seek assistance or clarification, relying too heavily on it may

lead to plagiarism or a lack of understanding of the subject matter. It’s important for students to

strike a balance between using technology as a tool and independently learning and thinking.

What do you think about the paragraph above? Is it normal? If yes, then don’t be surprised. The

opinion above is entirely generated from ChatGPT. As you can see, the opinion is the same as

the human generation, and this is CRAZY. I agree that it brings various benefits for searching

information without subscribing for membership. However, in education, such tools can help

students a lot in completing assignments without teachers’ notice if there aren’t any AI detectors.

Besides, Silvia, an assistant professor at the American University of Sharjah, warns that “The

text generated by ChatGPT, however, is unique, which makes it undetectable by anti-plagiarism

software” (Silvia, p. 6). This raises many concerns for me as I don’t use the program for most of

my study habit. Because of this, Cindy, the CEO and Founder of SalesChoice, also mentions that

many schools can’t give out a proper solution rather than “have also banned access to ChatGPT”
(Cindy, p. 1). On the other hand, Klein, the founder in chief and then editor at large of Vox, has

the opposite opinion that students “do not take technology seriously enough. They refuse to see

how it is changing us or even how it is changing them.” (Klein, p. 2). This means that the fault

does not come from the program but rather from us, from our selfishness in every aspect of life.

This leads me to the question: How is overusing ChatGPT affecting cognition and morality on

students?

Many people often only consider the immediate benefits but ignore the long-term consequences.

Agreeing that using ChatGPT can help students reduce the workload at school, but it can also

result in many serious problems. One of them is laziness. The more convenient it is, the lazier

students are. Because the program provides everything a student needs, they don’t need to

change anything as the answer has already finished. Therefore, students do not need to think

about their own writing. This action unintentionally affects their critical thinking as students are

only dependent on one source without editing (or just a few words and phrases).

Additionally, they don’t even spend their time investigating other sources, leading to lack of in-

depth knowledge. The problem is that ChatGPT is just an AI, so it gets the information created

from people, so the knowledge can be wrong. Furthermore, the owners are from Western

cultures, so its tones and attitudes are mostly from the West. Therefore, there would be a lack of

diversity in language, reducing the creativity and uniqueness of writing. On the other hand, the

language generated from ChatGPT is also biased against gender, race, and religion. As a result,

Weidinger and Rayne both claim: “The danger of using biased datasets for training is twofold: at

a macro level, the outputs generated by AI have the potential to perpetuate existing biases, while
on a micro level, they can exert influence by subtly and unconsciously shaping one’s opinions,

which can then impact one’s behavior in the real world” (2021, 2023). Also, this can propagate a

monoculture, passively shaping ways of using language in a biased way.

Moreover, because of not critically thinking about the problems, “an over-reliance on ChatGPT

may result in learners acquiring language skills that are disconnected from real-life

communication, leading to a superficial understanding of language and culture” (Silvia, pp. 5-6).

This implies that the more we are dependent on it, the less skills we learn, which can result in

lack of real-world expertise, leading to a reduction in productivity, or we can say, job

opportunities.

Another problem with using ChatGPT is ethics. The two most important characters are integrity

and honesty. As the writing generated from the program is hard to be detected by other Ais,

many students “use ChatGPT for assistance in completing language assignments or assessments,

which raises concerns about plagiarism, cheating, and the authenticity of learners’ work” (Currie

2023). Therefore, we would prefer to ignore the guilt to get high scores. Little by little, we ignore

all moral laws and compete for points which are only valuable in the system but not helpful for

our academic paths. In other words, we prioritize grades, or reputation, without thinking about

ethics, which can determine our characteristics, leading to long-term consequences. As a result,

this can make us become worse as we only care for our benefits without noticing others, which

minimizes the social life around us. Moreover, someday, those characters will become our

normal norms which can be transmitted through generations, affecting new mindsets.
In addition, this can also affect other students in poor areas. As they don’t have enough

conditions to get access to the Internet, there would be a disadvantage for them not to have such

a wonderful tool to get more information for everything. Therefore, Silvia states: “This

inequitable internet access can create disparities and exclude certain learners from accessing

ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools” (Silvia, pp. 4-5). As a result, there would be an unfairness

between students who have conditions to access and those who don’t, making the judgment of

intelligence unintentionally biased. Therefore, there will be more employed people depending

solely on ChatGPT to seek answers, reducing the productivity of the company, which leads to a

reduction of the nation's economy.

With all of the negative consequences above, it is essential for people to take ChatGPT into

consideration when using it. Perhaps it is very difficult for students to notice these effects

because they simply care about the grades. Minister Boyer said: “I don’t think we can bury our

head in the sand here and just think that you know ChatGPT or artificial intelligence are an

overnight sensation that is going to disappear. They are here, and in fact, we’re going to see a lot

more,”. Therefore, parents, AIs generators, and schools’ instructors have to be the ones helping

students to realize these.

In conclusion, there are still many dissolved questions around ChatGPT such as what would

outweigh, benefits or drawbacks? This depends on how students use it as a resource for

reference. Overall, although there are many disadvantages of using the program, ChatGPT still

provides us many things valuable for our daily lives (evidence for its intelligence is that it
 outperformed the average score of MCAT – one of the hardest tests in the world). Therefore, I

think we need to take ChatGPT into consideration when using it for our purposes.

Works Cited

Klein, Ezra. “I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message.” The New York

Times, The New York Times, 7 Aug. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/08/07/opinion/media-

message-twitter-instagram.html.

Gordon, Cindy. “How Are Educators Reacting to Chat GPT?” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 5 Oct. 2023,

www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2023/04/30/how-are-educators-reacting-to-chat-gpt/?

sh=71afcc6d2f1c.

Vaccino-Salvadore, Silvia. “Exploring the Ethical Dimensions of Using Chatgpt in Language Learning

and Beyond.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 14 Aug. 2023,

www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/8/3/191.