Op-ed: The Present and Future of AI on and off Campus

By Camille W. '26

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer the script of science fiction movies. It is becoming a part of our everyday lives, ranging from virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa to autonomous vehicles. With AI technology continuing to grow, its implementation in the future high schools will be gigantic, transforming the way of learning by the students, teaching by instructors, and running of schools.

Ironically, the introduction above was written by ChatGPT and refined through HumanizeAiPro, a website that enhances AI-generated text to make it sound more human. It underwent five rounds of “humanization.” The original version of this intro (see below) was identified by three different AI detectors—ZeroGPT, CopyLeaks, and Undetectable AI—as 100% AI-generated. Afterward, however, none of these websites were able to pinpoint any AI. Our reliance on AI has become so extreme that we now use AI to help us seem more human-like, a bizarre and full-circle situation. 

Many are beginning to question: is the ultimate goal of AI companies to humanize AI or to robotize humans? AI humanizing websites, like HumanizeAiPro, work to rewrite text to appear more human by making the writing sound more casual, natural, and engaging, eliminating robotic undertones. Each day, AI models are enhanced to better generate, translate, and respond to complex questions. The better AI becomes, or rather the more human AI becomes, the more we rely on it. The use of AI is at an all-time high; OpenAI (via Marketplace) claims there are over 400 million weekly ChatGPT users, a 30% increase from just a few months ago. 

On February 22nd, a “Humans Over AI” protest took place outside the OpenAI office in downtown San Francisco. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, protestors expressed their concerns over “human extinction,” demanding that the government shut down the company and ban the development of AI. They fought for Suchir Balaji, a former OpenAI researcher, who exposed ChatGPT for violating the United States Copyright Law by using New York Times articles to train GPT language models. In November, Balaji committed suicide, but his parents and many OpenAI protestors suspect homicide relating to Balaji’s whistleblowing. The OpenAI protestors insist on further investigation of Balaji’s death, claiming AI has lost control, becoming a growing threat to humanity. Realistically, AI will not replace humans; these concerns lie more with AI inserting itself too excessively into inherently human spaces. In the end, three out of five of the protestors were arrested.

While these protests and lawsuits go beyond our College Prep community, the ethical dilemmas behind them do not. When engaging with AI, we are responsible for considering them. On the surface, school is about grades, passing tests, and succeeding, all of which AI is commonly used to boost. But on a deeper level, the true purpose of education is learning how to become a good person: empathetic (English), accountable (history), connection-oriented lLanguages), curious (math), aware (sciences), and enriched (arts). As students, resourcing AI for just about everything educational ultimately cheats us out of becoming emotionally intelligent people.

A College Prep teacher who wishes to remain anonymous believes that AI is also impacting the collaborative learning, critical thinking, research, and writing required to succeed in future careers. Recognizing that in the past year, students' work seemingly is increasing in use of “AI to sculpt and craft the style of their writing,” this teacher believes that unauthorized reliance on AI is compromising students’ ability to develop their individual and collaborative voices. However, this teacher also acknowledges the benefit of certain AI tools that “support students’ ability to do their work,” which this teacher recommends. Ultimately, this teacher believes that students must learn to balance AI in their education by recognizing when they should focus on building skills as independent, human thinkers: “They need to do the learning here [in high school], and then they get to be AI checkers.” 

Navigating AI is one of the most challenging problems schools face today. The Alpha School, with campuses in Austin, Brownsville, and Miami, is branded as “the school of our future.” Here, students work one-on-one with an AI tutor with the mission of utilizing AI technology to achieve subject specific academic mastery within two hours, leaving the rest of the school day for developing passions and “real-world” skills. The future relationship between schools and AI is unknown and mysterious, but one thing is clear: we, the students, are the future. While we need to learn how to work ethically and responsibly alongside AI, it is solely our responsibility to determine what our future looks like. 

Original introduction written by ChatGPT: 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just a concept from science fiction movies. It’s becoming an integral part of our daily lives, from personal assistants like Siri and Alexa to self-driving cars. As AI technology continues to advance, its impact on high schools in the future will be profound, reshaping how students learn, how teachers teach, and how schools operate.