As artificial intelligence technology rapidly develops, tools such as ChatGPT, Grammarly and Gamma have become familiar names, integrating into daily life and education. But while many students at the University of North Georgia are turning to AI to boost learning efficiency, questions remain about overreliance and accuracy.
“I definitely think it’s useful sometimes,” said Marissa Van Bever, a freshman majoring in business. “For me personally, if my teacher assigns an assignment and I don’t really understand how to do it, I use AI to simplify her words and explain it to me in a different way.”
Students say AI can help clarify difficult concepts, making study time more efficient. “If you’re struggling with a certain math concept during lecture and there’s a specific problem used as an example and you’re confused about how the professor got the answer, I would be like, okay, this is how the professor did that,” said Ava Upton, a freshman engineering major. “So then you don’t have to go to office hours. You could also just text the professor, but in my opinion it’s quicker.”
Still, students express caution. Upton said AI should never replace critical thinking or be used for graded assignments. “I say never use it on any graded assignments,” She said. “But if you want to really comprehend the subject even better, you can ask AI questions about how to get from A to B. Never on graded assignments and definitely not in language classes, because AI in language classes, to be honest, is just terrible. If it gives a whole essay or something, you can clearly tell it’s AI as well. I wouldn’t use it anyway.”
Faculty also share this nuanced view. Dr. Pedro Diaz Gomez, a visiting professor in the Department of Computer Science and Cybersecurity at UNG, said he supports students using AI as a learning tool, but warns against shortcuts.
“I am not opposed to AI, but that depends on the outcome of each course,” Gomez said. “If a student is, for example, learning how to program, then it’s not good to use AI. A student can go to AI and say, ‘I need to write a Python program that will receive input from the user and do this and that.’ AI will write a beautiful program in Python. But is the student going to understand the different statements in the program? Probably not. The program is going to work, probably yes, but then the student goes out of the course without learning anything about programming. That depends on the outcome.”
Gomez added that even he uses ChatGPT for learning, not to copy answers, but to engage critically. “Not only do I use ChatGPT for learning, but I ask it questions the way I would with an expert,” he said. “I ask, ‘What about this?’ and it replies. And I can say, ‘You are wrong because of this,’ and then it corrects. This kind of chain of interaction is like working with a human expert. But we must keep in mind AI is not 100 percent right.”
