This is what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say for the definition of the word “artificial”: adj. and n.; of a thing: made or constructed by human skill, esp. in imitation of, or as a substitute for, something which is made or occurs naturally.

A substitute for something that occurs naturally.

Today, a student turned in something that was written entirely by artificial intelligence. I am not certain why I am so upset about it. They were not the first student this year to do so. Not the second either. And I get this upset every single time. It isn’t the contempt required to assume that I won’t notice. It isn’t the gaslighting that occurs after either. No. It is that I feel like something beautiful, fragile, and dangerously rare dies a little bit every single time someone cedes their opportunity to draw something from within themselves and put it in the world. Each person has a unique voice, even – or perhaps especially – those people who don’t love writing.

But it isn’t just their voice being silenced that makes me sad. It is the careless disregard for thinking that is also heartbreaking. It is the blythe acquiescence to giving up something that belongs to humans by evolutionary right. When we read, and when we analyze, our brains change. This precious time that middle schoolers have sometimes feels like it is being wasted on them, because their brains are so elastic, so capable of growth and learning. Maybe it is the great paradox of youth; one longs to be seen and understood while simultaneously hiding from their own light.

My friend often comments about how smoothly we have allowed AI to take on the tasks that make us human, while allowing ourselves to be trained to be robots. Writing, art, photography, the curation of information, design – all of those things are being done by AI in many places. And what do we get back? The erasure of our identities as unique beings.

My (perfectly justifiable) frustration (rage) about this student turning in an AI generated essay is tempered by a nebulous fear about what it means for us as humans. If we think, therefore we are, then what does it mean if we let something else do the thinking for us? If it thinks we are, then are we? And what if it stops? Do we? Science fiction has shown itself to be prescient countless times and it rarely works out for humans because we merrily hand over the “difficult” tasks to robots so we “have more time” for the things that we would rather “do”. Then – BOOM – people v. machines!

Y’all may think that this is tin-foil-hat material, but I’m just sayin’. Artificial intelligence is definitely changing the way students learn. And if they learn.