Generative artificial intelligence, also abbreviated as AI, is a circulating topic and tool that has been rapidly changing our society. It’s been implemented all throughout social media, used for advertising, in academic life, and is quickly being applied in numerous work environments. Moreover, Osbourn is full of teachers who are very passionate about their course topics and educating others; it begs the question of how their work environment has been impacted as teachers.

From an initial perspective, we’re already aware of how the availability of AI has led to particular students using it to cheat and plagiarize within their school work. Not to mention, all around school, we’ve seen a sudden use of AI from staff and administrators: from advertising, creating assignments, and classroom decor. 

Furthermore, it’s important to first note what the staff’s view of AI is in the first place. Most staff have very diverse and differentiating opinions towards AI, as there hasn’t been a widely agreed-upon opinion towards this topic. A common pattern viewed towards AI is that older generations tend to view it as just another average technological advancement, while some younger generations have a more negative and knowledgeable view of it. 

Mr. Edwards shares his personal views on AI: “I despise the use of language models and generative AI There is a lot of confusion with it as a technology that leads to mixing it up with other technologies. For example, assistive AI is neat and has been around for years. Generative AI–which in reality isn’t genuinely artificial intelligence–is deeply damaging to artists, the environment, and people in general.” A couple of people can agree with Mr. Edwards that AI hasn’t made society any easier, that all its benefits have negatives that completely outweigh the positives. 

Other staff members have very neutral opinions surrounding the usage of AI: “Meh. I feel like it can be handy for quick information. But, as a published writer, I do not love using it. I care about tone and word choice a lot, so I never feel like AI captures the vibe I want. I do not judge other teachers for using AI, though. Writing is harder for some people. I guess I just feel like by the time I edit the AI text to sound like me, I could have just written it myself,” said journalism teacher, Ms. Miller.

To summarize, the majority of interviewed staff had neutral to negative views on AI. I hadn’t spoken with a staff member who was strongly positive about its use, although I am aware such staff members exist. 

Moreover, it’s well known that since the availability of AI, the use of plagiarism and cheating has increased within academic work. Ultimately, this has led to new challenges for teachers when it comes to grading. Teachers share how their students using AI have altered their work life, specifically causing frustration and confusion. English teacher Mr. Nejame shares that: “Grading has now become an overly complicated process. It is now extremely and unnecessarily time-consuming to grade English work. I have to put essays through multiple AI checkers, most of which are blocked, too, which makes the process even harder. It’s been so frustrating to the point that I am taking a part of essential class time to just grade. And I am put in just such an uncomfortable position, like, I feel really awkward and bad whenever I have to suspect a kid has been using AI. And then if I catch a student using it, then I have trust issues with that student from then on.”

The most affected by this AI are English teachers, or teachers whose curriculum involves heavy writing. And aside from an overload in plagiarism, English teachers explain that doing basic and original research for students is now impossible. “For me, AI has significantly slowed down my grading process. Teaching, however, introduces another hurdle for students to get over in terms of research. Many students Google something and just look at the AI overview with no additional thought–that isn’t research! Language models are programmed to appease a command given, so they will make things up just to appease that command. The temptation of the ‘convenience’ in generative AI is hard for students, and people in general, to resist,” said Edwards.

Moreover, Ms. Miller adds on how she doesn’t like how the usage of AI has affected student writing: “The thing I love about Osbourn is the diversity here. The reason I love teaching journalism is that it gives students a unique voice. To me, AI kind of takes away the diversity of the student voices by making everyone sound the same. It destroys the beauty of students expressing themselves and makes them all sound kind of basic and generic.”

Apart from English teachers, teachers in other fields have shared their opinions and struggles too. Mr. Newman, A math teacher and Robotics coach, explains the duality AI has on robotics programs and Math overall.  “The 2 robotics programs that I work with have differing views on using AI. The VEX program is extremely student-focused and prohibits the use of AI; everything should be cited. We disqualified a few teams from consideration for judged awards because of clear use of AI. The first program does not require citing; in fact, it encourages sharing resources and ideas freely amongst teams”. 

Math is a field that, unfortunately, has already been heavily assisted by machinery in the last few decades. From the invention of the calculator to math-solving applications, and now to AI, this sudden shift of AI hasn’t surprised people in the math field, considering students have already been using math-solving apps that use AI in their software for years. “When a student uses PhotoMath, that is generative AI, but it has guardrails on it because a company has overseen its development and is still in charge of the day-to-day maintenance of their platform. I think when AI goes from assisting to being the ‘end all, be all’ without thinking through the response, that is when we will start having issues, as people are unable to decipher between truth and A.I-generated “, says Newman. 

Aside from core classes, there are still many fields that have been impacted by A.I, more specifically, art as a whole. Although it is noticeable that between adults and students, staff are much more encouraging of AI art than students. “I have noticed that students are a lot more annoyed and feel disapproving of AI art, compared to teachers,” said Miller. “I feel like students hate and are much more annoyed by AI art compared to teachers. And it’s been the admin and staff who are using it a lot,” said junior Jasmine Villanueva. 

Art teacher, Mrs. Bosarge, explains her opinions towards AI “art” as a whole: “For it to be an original, it has to come from your heart, your head, just typing a few words in to get an image to me, it’s not a lot of effort. There’s no effort in it, so I don’t think it’s art.” Although students don’t use AI to generate their artwork, it has still managed to disrupt the art courses. “Yes, so in artist statements, you can tell when a student uses AI to do it because it doesn’t have anything to do with their actual artwork. It’s more of a vague general statement. So I call them out on it, because this isn’t an artist statement about your artwork, it needs to be about you, it’s your art”. For context, artist statements are assignments where a student has to detail the meaning and thought process behind their artwork.

In art and education as a whole, the trial-and-error process is what makes it all authentic and beautiful. Edwards shares his views on this statement: “I find beauty in the process of learning. Part of learning is struggling–not being ‘very good.’ Art is something we should all enjoy the process of learning with and improve at as humans. Art is human expression–something we should all practice. Otherwise, we will lose the ability to do so”.

Aside from students mainly using it for plagiarism, staff have also been using it to create their own school work. “I have noticed teachers using AI a lot in their own assignments, such as my DE U.S. History teacher. You can tell they have been using it to make the rubric, topics, and assignment descriptions; it just irritates me a bit. I just feel like it’s unfair because they preach to us to never use it, but they use it all the time. It also just feels a lot less authentic and less care from teachers when they use it to make assignments,” said an anonymous junior. 

Thankfully, teacher insight has allowed us students to understand the guidelines given to staff: “We actually just had professional development on AI, using it to create quizzes and tests and things like that. We are actually encouraged to use it by the admin, but they do allow us the choice to use it or not. I mean, as much as people don’t like it, it is the future, unfortunately, and I think we’re gonna see more of it, whether we like it or not,” says Bosarge. 

Aside from students, other teachers share their opinions about using AI to create assignments and curriculum. Nejame states, “I do know teachers who are using AI to grade their assignments, and I would be doing that too if it weren’t for the fact that it’s taking information and data from my own students. Like, AI, whatever you feed it, it is using that information and training itself on it, and I don’t want my students’ information to be in the hands of an AI”.

Other staff members are more fearful of the thought of AI grading and doing their own work, and would much rather stay away from it. “AI is already affecting my career as an educator, and I deeply fear the possibility of it being used to further replace real educators. I fear the day kids sit in an automated classroom with an adult that walks around monitoring them with a generated script to assist them with their manufactured lesson,” said Edwards. 

What are your concerns with AI? How do you feel about it being encouraged in our assignments? Let us know in the comments!