In a flurry of extra-curriculars, tons of course work and precious social time, it’s tempting to outsource your thinking to Chat GPT.
There’s a lot of helpful things generative AI can do. But when we rely on it too heavily, it will become a crutch. It will make us choose quick answers over curiosity, squelch creativity into laziness and dull our minds into overly simplistic ways of thinking.
Have we forgotten the real purpose of a liberal arts education? Two main pillars are critical thinking and citizenship. In alignment with this kind of intellectual growth is Furman’s own mission statement, which states that the university “challenges and supports lifelong learners through rigorous inquiry, transformative experiences and deep reflection to lead lives of meaning and consequence.”
Using AI to summarize readings, complete assignments or write entire papers allows you to skip over the challenge — the part we should be focused on.
You must challenge yourself in conversations with people that hold different beliefs than you. Challenge yourself to struggle with a new subject. Challenged to trudge through difficult ideas as we write papers.
“(Writing a paper) is not supposed to be easy. It’s supposed to be a struggle,” Philosophy professor Dr. Darren Hick said. “That’s how you get better. That’s how you learn. That’s how you become a human.”
Hick forbids things like Grammarly that may be detected as plagiarism, and encourages students not to rely on AI to summarize texts too much. The point of philosophy, he says, is to struggle through ideas, not to get a good grade.
“I assign you a paper so you can struggle with a problem. Whatever that problem is, it’s about the struggle,” Hick said. “It’s so you can go off and try and understand the material, and try to come to a view of your own of that material, and try and figure out a way to explain your view and justify that view, whatever it is.”
His classes are a place to learn and develop as a person, not to simply get a good grade. Using AI is just a way to get to that end faster, which isn’t the point.
“Those are all the things I think are antithetical to why I assigned the thing in the first place.”
When we don’t take the opportunity to hone our critical thinking skills, we miss out on the chance to be critical of our world.
As college graduates, we should be hirable. But more importantly, we should also be keen thinkers that will identify problems, think in novel ways and contribute to a diverse intellectual culture.
“At the same time that you are developing a set of skills that point outwards, you should be developing some insight that points inwards,” Hick said.
It’s noble to choose learning for the sake of learning. You will find within it joy and exploration and revelation. Don’t be lazy and default to Chat GPT for brainstorming or writing. Instead, muddle through the tough ideas on your own. You’ll be much better off for it.
