AI has a chokehold on the tech and every other industry in the world at the moment. Some might say that AI is deteriorating our minds by giving us the easy way out. Which is understandable, however AI can also serve as a personal assistant rather than a full on cheat code. Me along with other colleagues who have used chatbots such as ChatGPT, all use AI to help us save time on fix errors. AI can also be used as a teaching tool especially in an educational stand point. Whenever there is a concept I do not understand, I always go to ChatGPT to get a more simplified and detailed explanation.
In ICS 314, I utilized AI in almost every step of the class. Not with the intent to cheat, but rather to help me better understand where I went wrong in my thinking process. In every WOD, I would eventually have to use AI to assist me in fixing my errors, almost every time it fixed my errors pretty quickly while explaining to me just where I went wrong. This was also useful in helping me stay within the timer, as well as doing better in future WOD attempts.
For example, in our final project for the class, I wanted to create animations so that the elements smoothly transitioned onto the user’s screen. Of course on the top of my head, I had no idea what to do or where to even start. So I pulled up ChatGPT and sure enough I was able to get a solid code snippet to start me off. Not only did it give me the code, it also answered all of my questions pretty spot on.
Here’s a list of how AI helped me in various situations:
AI in general has really influenced my learning in a sense that I rely on it for almost about anything. For example when learning data structure and algorithms, I always used GPT to break down each topic into analogies. Although I will say some of my problem solving abilities have gone downhill since my use of AI, I will say that it definitely helped my understanding instead.
Outside of ICS 314, I’ve also used AI for a lot of other personal projects of mine. When attempting to make my own compiler in C, I used AI to break down a ton of line of code that I would not be able to understand easily on my own. Instead of struggling and spending an hour trying to piece together a couple lines of code I saved a lot of time. This exact concept can be applicable to any other software engineering task.
Some challenges I face using AI mostly have to do with the fact that I am too reliant on it. Over time I’ve realized I started to use AI more and more for assignments or anything in general. Another issue is that AI doesn’t always give the correct answer. When asking for super specific output, sometimes the AI doesn’t fully deliver, leading to many more questions to be asked.
Comparing AI to traditional teaching methods is quite hard. On one hand the AI chatbot can answer all of your questions in a second. You need a code snippet? Here it is in 2 seconds. Think of it as your personal tutor in a sense except without the physical concepts. Now this is nice and all, but it can be pretty hard to retain information when it is taught in such a way. Most of the time AI just solves everything for you without giving you that room to do it on your own. Traditional teaching I’d say helps build your problem solving skills way more. Instead of relying on some machine, you get the time to really apply what you learned in in-class assignments.
I think AI will definitely play a huge role in education in the near future. I could see it being used along side professors in a classroom as a virtual tutor. With the right regulations, I could also see it being used as a tool to improve students solving skills rather than diminishing them. If done right, it could make learning easier and more accessible for everyone.
Overall, using AI made this course a lot less stressful for me. I was able to improve my coding and learn various new concepts. Although I do think at the end of it all, I was relying on it way too much. So maybe the use of AI should be regulated more during in class WODs or assignments in general. I believe that AI should be included in a way that helps student think critically at the same time.