Artificial intelligence has a rich, but short history going back to the early 1950s with minds like Alan Turing who was the pioneer of exploring the mathematical possibility of AI. In his 1950 paper “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, Turing discussed how to manufacture these AI and test their abilities and intelligence. Unfortunately for Turing, computers in this time were extremely expensive to lease, costing around 200,000 dollars to run a month. Old computers were also not advanced enough to store commands and could only execute commands. Turing had to prove to universities and big companies that had these computers that advancing AI was worth the cost.
These days, AI has advanced to the point where it can generate images with just words, mimic voices with only seconds of the original voice, write entire articles in just seconds, and even be a friend to talk to when no one else will.
Companies like Apple, StarryAI, and hotpot.ai are just a few examples of AI that can generate art. These art-generating AI are a newer technology gaining popularity in the last few months. According to Google Trends, these AI art-generating sites are at an all-time high. These sites have been a hot topic of discussion in the educational community and artist community. In a YouTube video titled, “Under AIs Watchful Eye China Wants to Raise Smarter Students”, Wall Street Journal reporter Shen Hong explains how China is utilizing AI to monitor their students’ brain activity to determine who has been paying attention and who hasn’t. The children explain: “Red means you’re very focused… This headband works when you’re thinking.”
With the introduction of AI to schools, the problem of works being written by an AI has already been identified and counter programs have been already developed, for example, ZeroGPT. Getting a teacher’s perspective is vital in understanding the current controversy of having AIs available to students to use. Dr Robert LaBarge, an English teacher at CHS, said, “In some respects, you have to embrace it, [but] it doesn’t mean you have to embrace all aspects.” In my own opinion, I think AI could be used for ideas and brainstorming for writing documents such as essays, theses, and research papers. If not regulated in high schools and higher education institutions, unchecked use of AI writing tools could lead to rampant cheating and plagiarism.
