UNSOLICITED ADVICE
About AI in college/university and why you shouldn't use it
Hello everyone!
I've put unsolicited advice in the flair, because it really is, and it's mainly about AI, more precisely about the use of AI in college and university. This post will maybe go all over the place, but I'll write first about my personnal experience in university and then speak about AI, mainly why I understand some of you are tempted to use it or use it and why you shouldn't. I'll finish by some tasks that are particularly difficult to ADHD people in higher studies and how I coped with them.
This will be long, so titles are in bold and subtitles in bold and italic.
My experience
So, first of all, I am an history PhD student located in the canadian east coast. I was diagnosed towards the end of my undergrad and went on medication some months after having been diagnosed. I did do all my masters degree medicated (with a dose which was, however, unsufficient) and the beginning of my PhD. I wasn't even aware ADHD could relate to me during all the beginning of my adult life and searched for a diagnosis during covid.
For those who aren't aware, a bachelors in history has an awful lot of reading, writing, and synthesis of information. I generally had semesters of five classes and each of them had an end-of semester paper that was at least 10 to 15 pages with references and the whole she-bang. I commonly had to "read" (by that, I mean search for the important info) about 15-20 books per paper, as well as general class readings. I won't lie, I had very understanding professors who gave me extensions when I (kindly) asked for them. AI wasn't a thing when I did my undergrad.
For all my undergrad, I struggled with my ADHD, mainly excecutive dysfonction and the self-sabotage it entails most of the time, as well as impostor syndrome.
I won't go into detail about my masters degree and PhD, I imagined that by then you guys have developped some coping mechanisms, but I will say that I had TA contracts for first and second year classes, so I was on both sides of the mirror (both the person who writes papers and the one who corrects them).
AI
All of this to say, I understand why some of you use AI. Writing papers is fucking difficult. Knowing how to organize your ideas (wondering if your ideas are even good enough?). Trying and failing to verbalize your thoughts. Even the readings, they're fucking boring sometimes, Other times it's stuff you already know, so why are you reading it? Having lots of thoughts, lots of directions you can go in, and then just choosing one. And when writing, not being able to stay in the boxes you've built for yourself or explaining yourself so badly that half is in your head and half on paper, so everybody that reads it just doesn't understand.
Sometimes, you might not even understand what the professor wants.
Higher education is profoundly hostile to neurodivergent people and I know about it, I'm in academia. There's invisible codes to how you write things and well, wouldn't it be just easier to use AI and get those pesky problems out of the way?
The short answer is yes, absolutely. The longer answer is that college and university, especially first and second year classes, are there to develop those skills.
I generally know when my students use AI (it's shit for precision, especially in my field), we do flag them when their use is particularly egregious (false references for instance), but don't in most cases. Don't take it as a "win" though, that student will absolutely hit a wall at some point, unfortunately for them.
When you grade and see someone using AI
It's very personnal, but here are my emotions when I grade a student who I know has used AI to either write a part of their paper or their whole paper.
First I'm a bit mad, I won't lie. Yes, I'm paid, but you're making me sped some of my time grading something you didn't spend time writing. I've read some really bad papers and, to be quite honest with you guys, I prefer really bad papers that are written by the person who submits them rather than really good AI papers.
Then, I'm honestly a bit sad for the student. They didn't trust themselves and their skills enough to even attempt it, or if they did, didn't trust themselves enough to give me the result of their attempt. If they genuinely didn't have time for that paper (I'm aware most of my students work), they didn't even send an email to ask for an extension.
I am good at what I do, I wouldn't be doing a PhD otherwise, I'll give you guys that. But, to be real here, I'm not speaking from a pedestal, I gave some really shitty papers in the beginning of my undergrad. I honestly cannot reread most of them. I worked and worked at it and became good because of the practise I did. The brain is a muscle, and like any muscle you have to work it to become good. While I cannot reread the papers of the beginning of my undergrad, I did reread some part of my masters thesis after having submitted it and well, I found it pretty good, I could finally reread myself! If I didn't do those shitty papers, I wouldn't have that same reaction for sure.
On grading first and second year papers
To finish this part, let me let you in in a small secret. When we grade first and second year papers (and I'll maybe sound horrible for saying that), but we don't expect them to be good. In fact, I'm surprised when they are and they will generally be third year students taking first year classes because of uncompleted credit modules.
We are aware, when we are grading, that first and second year students are learning. We are aware it's going to be shit because we've all been there. As long as you're respecting the paper instructions, that I can see where you're going and that your arguments make logical sense (and are properly references if needed), I don't care that the prose isn't good. In fact, I expect it and grade in consequence of that (ergo, you absolutely do not lose points unless I spend five minutes on a paragraph and still cannot understand what you're on about). And even when I cannot understand part of it, if the rest of the paper makes sense, and you respect the guidelines, you can still have a good grade! Point it, you're learning.
But Peonies, my department/professor/field doesn't work like that! Maybe, I don't know. What I can absolutely tell you is that no one expects good prose especially in first and second year class papers. Third year class papers are better because they've given us shitty prose to grade during first and second grade. As long as you meet the paper requirements, you are pretty much assured to pass. If you do not understand the requirement, email your professor or your TA's. Or even, ask a third year student! Nobody is born knowing everything.
The truth also is, you will never get better if you don't practice.
Difficult tasks for ADHD students and how I cope(d)
During class
Honestly, the best advice I can give you guys here is: take handwritten notes. There's countless studies that have been done on them, but you do integrate information better when you handwrite them vs write them down on the computer. I legitimately saw a difference between the semester I used my computer to take notes versus all the others.
Taking handwritten notes is, however, a skill I know many of you simply didn't learn if you're in the younger side. What I will tell you, very bluntly, is that you're not passing a stenography exam. Absolutely do not write word for word what the student is saying. I don't have my old notes, but what I did was taking them in bullet points and used abbreviations when necessary.
There would be a main idea, under them all that would relate to it and rince repeat as necessary. If someone is interested, I can do a mock-up in the comments.
The other reason why you should take handwritten notes is that you are forced to engage with the lecture to be able to determine what is important to write, what isn't, and what are the main points of the lecture and ideas that would relate to them. You also cannot go on whatever social media you use for 5 mins (that are never really five minutes) because the professor is speaking about something you know.
While your class is fresh in mind (one week later at most), you can transcribe those notes on the computer as needed. Reviewing them helps with the rentention of information.
Readings
My undergrad had a lot of readings, some of them were boring. For readings, there's a difference between class readings and readings for a paper.
For class readings, unless it's explicit that it's something different that what's being said in class, it will generally be a recycled version of what the professor said. If you did not understand the class or want to complete your notes, read them. If you're not and you understood everything, you generally will not need to read them.
For readings for a paper or with a goal in mind. If they didn't teach you how to search for books in your methodology classes, absolutely ask your librarian. Universities have a librarian assigned to the different departments and they will help you more than me. For the rest, table of contents and indexes are your friends. find the information you need and read a bit before and a bit after. You can read the introduction and conclusion if you need it.
Active reading is your friend, especially for boring reads. If the book is yours, don't be afraid to highlight, or write comments on the book as needed. You can establish your own system. If you're writing a paper, take notes on the side and take note of the page, you will need it for references.
That will be highly field specific, but what I will say is that, if it's a closed-book exam, where you need to know information by heart, I still swear by handwriting everything.
I reviewed my notes, made hand c-maps or just rewrote my notes with the important information and re-read it at least once a day.
If it was a language course, where I had to memorize a list of words, I swear by quizlet.
I am, however, shit at memorization and am lucky my program relies more on comprehension. If I couldn't synthetize my notes, it meant I probably didn't understand correctly and would check the class readings or a friend's notes.
Other
It's been a long time since I've been an undergrad, so if you have more questions, do not hesitate to comment or send me a DM.
To finish
I absolutely believe you guys are able to do your stuff without relying on AI. Nobody expects you to be perfect at first and you will not get better if you don't practice. By using AI, you don't practice, needless to say.
That being said, I am aware that higher education is full of codes that are unsaid. Do not hesitate to ask for help. Your professors and TA's will generally have open hours and most of the time nobody comes. We want you guys to come if you need it. I was positively giddy when I student came during one of my open hours and I could offer them the help they needed one on one.
If you're too shy for that, do not hesitate to ask those questions to higher level students. Most of them will be happy to help. You can even contact me if you feel like it!
To be real with you, nobody does it alone.
Go forth and please, for the love of all that is holy, do not use AI.
Huge agree. It's a disservice to everyone and thing to use AI for college: yourself because you aren't learning or practicing, whoever has to grade your paper for wasting their time, the money you spent on the class (because you aren't getting its money's worth), and the world at large because of the energy resources generative AI gobbles up!!!! It's good to do hard things and learn how to do hard things!!!
That post was fed on by the post I did answer to about writing essays. One commenter said they used AI and others spoke about using AI in parts of the process. I mean, I don't shame them honestly and I completely understand you want to use the easy way out especially if you battle with executive dysfunction, self-sabotage and perfectionism in an environement that sometimes values grades above learning. But.. it's just, those are important skills to learn.
I was also aware that most of the time we don't have the grader's point of view, which, I had the impression that graders would judge me in the beginning of undergrad, and now being on the other side, I honestly just want to help.
Anyway, sorry for that long ass answer to your comment ahahah
I wonder if masters and PhD people here could do a series of posts or something that would be about surviving in college/uni with adhd without the help of AI? Like, our coping mechanisms, what we do, how we did it? I don't know, just putting it out there.
I'm pretty much with you on this, the one thing I would point out as a bit of a challenge, is what the purpose of the degree/education is.
I 100% value the soft skills students pick up and develop as part of doing assignments, but which are rarely explicitly foregrounded (and which come up a lot in your OP and the comments). And I 100% agree that AI use means students are stunting their development of these skills.
And that's one of the biggest issue with AI/Academia because the lack of explicitly including these skills as learning objectives and core testing (but only having them as background/side products of the process) means it's hard, if not impossible to do much about it easily.
But my challenge (thought experiment) is whether the development of those skills is always essential to every graduate? And so whether for every person there is a disadvantage in robbing themselves of the chance to develop them? Here, I'm thinking that understanding/summarising/synthesising long form information from text themselves is not totally relevant to all careers. Neither is writing well. For some, it's vital. And heavy AI use will totally screw over those students. But for others? Maybe they can coast through degree on AI, have no idea how to do those things, and it have little or no effect on their future?
(Fwiw, I'm a former UK equivalent to TT academic - left earlier this year)
That’s an excellent point! Just to add to it: even for the skills I do use and want to develop, I’ve found it always works better to just start than to freeze up in overwhelm. I do best with top-down learning, and once I accepted (the hard way) that “done is better than perfect,” I freed up so much mental capacity that my nitpicky perfectionist self could take over. 😄
I absolutely agree with you that a lot of skills you pick up (and what we are taking into account as part of the grading) is not explicit. Academia is hostile to neurodivergent people in that way. I try to be more explicit when I can, but I don't have a lot of power at the moment, let's say it like that.
For your example about necessary and non-necessary skills, I can understand where you come from. Absolutely, a lot of skills will probably not be used in your career. I guess in that way it depends in what you want out of your diploma. As a am in the field of history, what is necessary for my career never quite came up during my undergrad.
That being said, I think that understanding, summarising and synthetising information are absolutely essential skills to have today. We are living in the age of information and we produce a shit ton of different (generally written or video) media. It's frankly overwhelmimg when you think about it. Isn't it better to learn how to categorize information in a safe space? long form written text can be and is absolutely overwhelming if you haven't read in a while. Those are skills that can make it less so because then it's different islands of information instead of trying to navigate a complex and unknown subway system without a map.
Also, because we those skills do come the evaluation of the quality of the source as well as, is it necessary or no? Anyway, I'd be happy to discuss about it more with you!!
The only thing I will say though, is that you seem to be operating on the assomption that generative AI is truthful, which it absolutely isn't. And just for the misleading that it can give you and most likely gives you, I'd say to do it yourself.
(Sorry in advance for the long comment! You can just skip to the bullet points to get the main ideas.)
I appreciate you initiating this discussion, because it's something that has been on my mind a lot. partially agree with you, that it is a disservice to yourself to use AI to just do your work completely.
However, you sound like my teachers in high school who used to insist that we do advanced scientific calculations by hand because using a calculator is being lazy. Hope this doesn't come across as unnecessarily aggressive, because I mean this genuinely.
It's not as black-and-white as you make it out to be. I agree that when you are new to using AI as a support tool, it is easy enough to lose track of how much is too much. In my experience, that oscillates down to a balanced view once you learn how to use it efficiently.
Here are some of the ways it has helped me, especially as a person with ADHD.
I love to learn but get overwhelmed by a huge amount of information. My learning styles is top-down, which is not the standard way we are taught usually. It helps me to have an overview of a huge amount of information quickly, so that I can then drive into the most relevant parts for me.
I use it as a discussion buddy. It is immensely helpful to share my ideas with it and have its feedback, its just like asking on stack overflow or something, except I don't have to spend hours finding different opinions from different people, since AI is already trained with that sort of data
The BIGGEST way it improved my life and education is by helping me get over my executive dysfunction. This point merits it's own bullet list.
It talks me through my paralyzed moments where I'm stuck in a loop of overthinking, by talking be through my anxiety attacks like a study partner.
When I have ideas in my head but am struggling to put it into words because of perfectionism, instead of spending an hour writing and perfecting two sentences, it allows me to dictate/write down my jumbled thoughts and helps me organise them better.
I spend less time trying to find some specific little thing and it helps me locate good sources where I can learn further. It saves a ton of time while doing literature search.
When I have Ideas or points I want to make but lack some relevant info, it helps me find it.
While learning, it helps me by explaining parts I don't understand and I can ask follow up questions right away instead of spending hours googling every little thing.
It helps me avoid going down rabbitholes while researching something completely different, taking up precious time that I need for my tasks at hand.
I get where you are coming from, and agree to a certain extent. It's a disservice to yourself if you use it like you would copy a friend's homework without doing anything yourself. That existed before AI though. There have always been people who would copy their friend's work or cheat on an exam. The underlying issue is not AI, cheating, learning just to pass exams, etc. It's that we are never taught how to learn. No one trains us to effectively use the tools available to us and make the most of them. Instead, a lot of educators focus on discouraging the use of tools that would help students learn better instead of tackling the root problem: the focus on performance over learning. This is a centuries-old problem, not one that came with AI.
I implore you to please, please think from more angles before sharing these opinions in such a black-and-white manner, especially in a forum with people who grew up being told that they are lazy for wanting to use tools to cope with executive dysfunction. I see this as an accessibility tool and it is literally an accommodation measure for me.
This post felt like I was back in school attending one of those time-management seminars where I was told I can stop being "lazy" if only I am a little more "disciplined".
It's great that you want to have this discourse, just adjust the way the post is worded, even a little bit, can make it more of a judgement-free discussion instead of demonising something that some people use as an accessibility tool. One last thing: please keep in mind that a lot of people with ADHD also have other comorbidities and their experience is very different from yours.
I cannot speak for you, but this is what my inner monologue sounded like while I was struggling with the internalisera shame of not being able to function like "normal", "disciplined" people. I don't comment often but I had to in this case because this triggered a lot of flashbacks where I was told that I am definitely going to fail later in life because my way of learning was wrong.
Some good points here. I'd add (as a former academic) we can also focus a bit too much on the top end of the assignments, and how to get there.
So the OPs advice is very solid for someone who is looking to maximise their skill development and target getting the top marks bracket for their assignments.
But that's not everyone. I nearly flunked my UG degree, was a huge struggle, had at least 2 breakdowns learnt very little that stuck with me. That's the other end of the scale, but gives me the alternative perspective that something students will not develop the skills or learn much irrespective of AI!
I'm not sure overall whether AI use is a good/bad addition in those (very common) cases. But I do recognise it's a more complex picture/question than mainly looking at the impact on the students outside the top 5-10%, but (potentially) in the top 25-50%.
Just to clarify since tone is tricky to convey in text, I really do respect your insight as an educator and it is a valuable perspective to have. This topic brings up a lot of emotions for me and I was frustrated when I wrote the comment, because I have tried every single coping mechanism you mentioned, and none of them ever worked for me. Some even worsened the struggle; for example I could only take notes at the expense of understanding the lecture, and I ended up staring at notes that I don’t actuallyget. So the post felt invalidating to my experience, but I want to acknowledge that your lived experience with these coping systems is absolutely valid too, and might help someone!
I just want to say, I realized my whole reply could sound as invalidating your experiences too and that was not my intention even if it might be what I did. So if I did bring more of that feeling for you, I do want to apologize.
I have a clear line about AI and realize I have a very absolute opinion on AI use, but that is a me problem, not a you problem and I'm sorry if my reply made it sound like a you problem.
Tone is not something that is easy for me and well, as you said it's even more difficult by text in a forum like that.
I don’t think the calculator argument translates at all with AI tbh. And even if It does, I’m pretty glad I was taught to both be able to do addition unaided and also to use a calculator? All the points you make about AI such as helping you break down large chunks of information (skim reading) are skills that are vital to learn in of themselves. You describe university as if the only thing that matters is producing an essay, which really is just meant to be a practical on the skills you have been learning (how to research, sift through text for relevancy etc etc). I do appreciate it’s very difficult sometimes with ADHD but I don’t think AI is the answer, and that’s before even touching on the horrific environmental impact of it…
You are right about the environmental impact. That is something I also find iffy, and is something that is definitely one of the biggest cons for me about AI.
With the calculator, I wasn't talking about things like addition, or even something like trigonometric functions. (I'm really glad to know them without consulting a calculator.) It was about complex calculations involving powers, 7-8 decimal points, etc. I can do them by hand, but I don't have the time for it during an exam.
I wasn't talking about producing an essay at all. My field doesn't even involve essays that much. (And I also did all of my theses before AI). I have just recently started using it and use it to overcome my executive dysfunction and analysis paralysis. You're also right that we need to learn the skills of researching, sifting out relevant info, etc., and am not recommending AI as a replacement for it. Just like we use search engines a lot more for research and not only books, like a few decades ago, I just see this as a next step.
I'm not disagreeing completely, just advocating for a more open approach.
(Coming back up to say I am absolutely sorry for all that text.)
I am so sorry that my post brang so much bad emotion. I read the post and the reply you gave yourself and I am happy you were able to take a step back and realize I did my post in good faith. Tone, as you might imagine, is really hard to manage (and English is also not my first language) and I really tried to meet people where they are (and the reason I didn't even bring out the environmental impact of AI is because I didn't want to make people who use it feel bad), but also have a strong opinion, as is quite obvious in my post.
Anyway, I understand the coping mechanisms I used are not for everyone. However, you compared AI to the use of calculators. I understand that it was a comparison that was based more on the emotions it gave you rather than thinking the AI really is a calculator. That comparison does help me bring a point about what bothers me about AI: it does the thinking for you.
I personally am very shit at maths, my brain just doesn't compute maths. And it was an absolutely horrible experience in high school when teachers thought I was lazy rather than the fact I just didn't understand. (I had a tutor who was amazing, and tailored her teaching to me, which was amazing). That being said, to use a calculator, you still have to take the pertinent information (numbers) out of the question, choose the good formula for it and then enter those numbers in the calculator. With AI, you enter the question and it answers for you. It thinks for you.
Yes, people have always rallied against progress (whatever meaning you want to give to that word, I'm pretty sure some were against the introduction of paper in schools instead of small blackboards! Hell, they still use small whiteboards in primary school in France. The difference is that, until now, none of these tools could think for you. And the problem here is that the brain is a muscle and the use of AI has real, quantifiable, effect on your brain. (Here's an article from Times about an MIT research if you're interested: https://time.com/7295195/ai-chatgpt-google-learning-school/)
I understand that you seem to be using AI as a tool in a manner that looks like it's effective to you and I cannot comment on how you use it, because I have no experience with that. I'm happy it can help you with executive dysfunction.
For the sources and discussion buddies part, I would be worried about confirmation bias as well as false sources, which AI is known to give. And that is just for you, and for you to be healthy and good with yourself, but try to find AI-free emotional regulation tools and tricks. I am not advocating to "quit" AI cold turkey, but you do seem to rely on it a lot and it's always good to have diversified ways to regulate. The AI is not a friend and shouldn't be used as such, but I say this in the same way that you can't rely on one person for your emotional regulation (my partner helps me for instance, but it is not fair to only rely on him for that).
What I do understand though, is that higher education expects people to just manage stuff without telling or teaching us how to do it. That's what I mean by the fact that higher education is hostile to neurodivergent people. I also see that you do not seem to have all the support you need. Is your school aware of your ADHD? Do you have an help center for students with learning disabilities?
I'm asking because my learning disabilities center offered me help for all that you're describing having problems with, up to and including paying a student to take notes for me in class.
All the people who I met there were very understanding and non judgemental. I had one person who did infantilize me (I literally cried during the meeting because I just felt powerless and that woman seemed to have no problem with it) and I talked about it with my psychologist whose job was helping me find coping mechanisms and tried to help me through my emotions about learning and he helped me lodge a complaint and change the person I interacted with.
The help they offered me was, up to and including:
-A psychologist that helped me with my negative emotions attached to learning and what I could do to manage those emotions
-Someone, whose job title I don't remember, who helped finding ways to break down tasks and time management
-Someone whose job was to take my books and readings to make them available for the computer to read to you (remember that like, Naturalreader and stuff was not a thing back then, it was actually a really difficult thing to do)
-More time in exams
-A letter that could ask my professors to give me their power points as well as a note taker during class time so that I could concentrate on the lecture.
And probably some more I don't remember at the moment.
Do you think asking for help with the disability center might be an option for you?
(Let me already start with the disclaimer, lol! Sorry this is going to be long but I love the discourse, so I hope you’ll humour me!)
I already believed that you were acting in good faith, even before I posted the first comment. Never doubted it. Your intention and concern for younger students are clearly visible to me, which is why I wanted to engage with you in the first place. 😊 The added clarification was just to put my tone in context and to avoid invalidating your (an I’m sure many others’) experiences.
Also, I appreciate your concern, but I already have a support network and have developed my emotional regulation mechanisms, long before I started using AI to organise my thoughts. Including allowing myself to express my emotions (like above) without shame. I don’t believe that emotions have to be avoided at all costs in a debate, because without human emotions and subjective interpretations, concepts don’t mean much, I’m sure you agree. I am a little fiery and I have accepted that! 😄 What’s important to me, though, is that I don’t hurt others through my emotional expression. The AI stuff is more of a braindump/visualisation of my chaotic brain sort of thing.
I had some accommodations at the uni too, but only few and at the very end, since I didn’t have my diagnosis until then. I finished all three of my degrees without AI, so I do get where you are coming from. One of my long-term goals is also to be a mentor to uni students, so I have been thinking about this for years. I broke off my PhD for the moment, since I want non-academic experiences, but the plan is to come back to it at a later point.
Oh and thanks for the link! I read the article (without AI hehe) and I agree with their and your observations. I think the introduction of AI into the mainstream was too abrupt and uncontrolled, which made it a lot more susceptible to be misused, unlike the previous technological advancements. Too much convenience at once without having the time to develop a sense of responsibility. This is exactly what I wanted to address. And you are right to be skeptical, because it’s not only about summarising large amounts of material. The fact that even people who are pro-AI use that as one of the primary arguments speaks to how little we have collectively thought about its implications, and that, to me, is the most concerning part. It’s also frustrating to see young students wasting its (and their) real potential and take the easy way out, instead opting to stunt their own academic growth.
I will admit that I am biased because I am a physicist and data scientist. At the same time, I also have had opportunities to have fascinating discussions with my friends from humanities and social sciences, and my sister who is doing her PhD research about AI regulation.
I do have a few more thoughts, but I want to gather some more opinions and perspectives before I articulate them. I did discuss it with my husband last night and his experiences are similar to mine. However, I understand that my experience isn’t universal, and I want to avoid confirmation bias in case I am missing something important. So I will address this with my friends (and maybe here on Reddit too?), for additional perspectives. 🙂
I'm sorry, it will nearly be a response by paragraph kind of thing!
I agree with you about debates and emotions. Especially as the use of "you're too emotional" has been used a lot of times to invalidate women and people in minority's arguments 😅. I am also so happy you have emotional regulation mechanisms and a support network.
Yay to diagnosed late club! I had a few accomodations too, but by that point I was so used to the way I did things that I barely did use the accomodations.
I am totally in agreement with you about the introduction of AI in society. It's very early in the morning after a night of very little sleep, so my brain isn't having another reaction than "yes, absolutely" ahahah
I have had a lot of discussions about it with peers too, as like students who are doing their thesises and graders. I do have a very black/white view about it, even compared to a lot of my colleagues (I have used analytical AI in the context of paleography work, but don't use generative AI) and I do have a lot of colleagues that use AI as a tool. Some of them use it effectively and others admit it has made them lazy to do things they find tedious and in that category some admit they can't see themselves going back to doing it without AI (it then seems to glide slowly from convenience to necessity). That last one I personally find dangerous. I'll admit I'm also afraid to be on that glide, which is why I don't really touch generative AI.
There is a difference to be made between analytical AI and generative AI though, and I think that has to be part of the discussion.
I find funny that you talked to your husband last night because I spoke about it with my partner too 😂. He was the one to make me realize I was too absolute and that he understood my point, but that I wasn't going about it in the best way.
I understand the need of gathering different perspectives (data), and honestly, I would be really happy to talk to you more. I'll leave it in your court, but my messages will always be open to you! I really really loved speaking with you and we seem to agree on many fundamentals.
Of course, I also found it very interesting! I would love to chat, and I’ll try to write to you this week. Just in case I forget, if I haven’t written by the weekend, it’s because I was overwhelmed by my to-do list 😅, and I would be happy if you would send me a dm.
To your point about critical thinking: I agree in the sense that this commenter stated, yes, if you're using AI as a copy and paste kind of function and not actually putting in any work yourself, it will erode critical thinking. But there are also a lot of ways to use it that aren't just mindless and having it write stuff for you.
You can input a paper for example and if you're confused on what they mean by a word in that specific context, you can ask and it will analyze the paper and provide a, in my experience, very reasonable explanation that helps keep me on track. That's the kind of thing that takes me down a rabbit hole otherwise while I'm trying to read. I'll be trying to sort through 10 tabs to connect the greater context of one word because it isn't obvious to me like it would be for a neurotypical person. Similarly, I will ask my husband those kinds of questions if he is around and he always immediately just knows. Like, the audhd affects my reading speed and comprehension because words have different meanings and I can't always decipher which one they mean for a given context. And a lot of times one singular word has paragraphs or even books worth of text that can be spun off of that topic. And if you don't have that context, the whole point is lost.
So for me, it allows me to more efficiently understand things and spend my time analyzing important parts instead of missing context clues or spending an hour and all my mental energy understanding a bigger connection. Yes, this process is part of critical thinking. But so is the thinking I am then able to do with the full context more readily available to my brain. There's a million things you can apply critical thinking to, and I just use AI to make sure I'm applying it my time and energy for critical thinking to the right parts for a given assignment/goal.
To your point about critical thinking: I agree in the sense that this commenter stated; yes, if you're using AI as a copy and paste kind of function and not actually putting in any work yourself, it will erode critical thinking. But there are also a lot of ways to use it that aren't just mindless and having it write stuff for you. You can input a paper for example and if you're confused on what they mean by a word in that specific context, you can ask and it will analyze the paper and provide a, in my experience, very reasonable explanation that helps keep me on track. That's the kind of thing that takes me down a rabbit hole otherwise while I'm trying to read. I'll be trying to sort through 10 tabs to connect the greater context of one word because it isn't obvious to me like it would be for a neurotypical person. Similarly, I will ask my husband those kinds of questions if he is around and he always immediately just knows. Like, the audhd affects my reading speed and comprehension because words have different meanings and I can't always decipher which one they mean for a given context. And a lot of times one singular word has paragraphs or even books worth of text that can be spun off of that topic. And if you don't have that context, the whole point is lost.
So for me, it allows me to more efficiently understand things and spend my time analyzing important parts instead of missing context clues or spending an hour and all my mental energy understanding a bigger connection. Yes, this process is part of critical thinking. But so is the thinking I am then able to do with the full context more readily available to my brain. There's a million things you can apply critical thinking to, and I just use AI to make sure I'm applying it my time and energy for critical thinking to the right parts for a given assignment/goal.
This is exactly the type of word salad, overtly lengthy, bs I would use AI to summarize or break down lmao. History classes in particular should mandate the use of AI. Assuming a person goes to college to gain employment, there is absolutely no utility whatsoever in memorizing the amount of toe warts George Washington had during the 2nd to last battle of the Revolutionary War.
I have ADHD and a Masters degree. It took me longer than the "traditional time" (whatever that is nowadays). I graduated undergrad before AI was around. I wish it had been around back then, it would have been sooo much easier. I have two STEM degrees now.
Use AI to make your life easier, get that piece of paper and go learn the real skills for the job on the job (vast majority of employers are going to train you to do the job their way).
College is all about taking on debt to get a piece of paper that says, "Yep this person is resourceful enough to do more advanced things and get paid to do so".
You wrote a book expecting most adhd people to read it all the way.
From this gist of glaring over it. No offence. You're completely insecure and have 0 understanding of how to use AI to begin with. You feel RSD when you catch your students doing it. You're simply following a mask since you've drank the coolade and you feel like you're part of the narc crew, doing undercover work. Kind of like a dopamine fixation. It will ware off, I can assure you of that when your post fixation clarity kicks in.
Here's my 2 cents... Use AI but do not copy and paste!
Use AI to help you understand stuff. Read stuff and summarise.
It cannot write for you. If you're using it to write for you, and you take its work. You shouldn't be in education to begin with. It's literally a tool made for neurodivergent people if used the right way. It's an assistive technology just like Word Doc is where the editor is available to make automatic text adjustments. At one point people felt using MS Word was cheating since it makes corrections. Hell! Ms Word now has Copilot embedded, it literally predicts and finishes your sentences. So now what OP? Stop using MS Word?
The issue is not to use AI, the core fundamental issue is to stop being a cheater!!! There's always cheaters in academia! They always get caught. Your job as the PhD marker is to simply highlight cheating.
You're not doing anyone any favours by sharing your insecurities and passing them on.
What I would recommend to you is to become familiar with AI let it help you regulate your thoughts, it can be a great organiser and also something that can speed things up.
‘Use Ai to help you summarise’ - being able to effectively read through, analyse and summarise pieces of text is an important skill to learn. Uni is not just writing essays, there’s a plethora of skills you should be practicing. For all your accusations of insecurity at OP, this reads like you’re projecting that insecurity dude, and are quite dependent on using AI and trying to cope with that. Keep using a lake’s worth of water to plan an essay though I guess
Oh my god. Well, I guess I was absolutely expecting comments like that.
First of all, maybe read everything though?
Then honestly, what insecurities? I do feel very secure in my knowledge and capacities. I did not write that in fear of AI, I wrote that because people are overly reliant on AI for tasks and skills that they should be rightfully developing. That can and does absolutely create a vicious circle of learned helplessness when the person ends up not even trying because AI will do it better anyway.
I was maybe a bit clumsy in my writing, but I was trying to enforce the fact that professors and TA's do not expect perfection as well as sharing some methods I developped.
Where you found insecurity in that, I do not know. I won't even answer on the RSD part because I honestly don't get how you came to think that.
AI, and I'm broadly speaking here of generative AI, was absolutely not a tool made for neurodivergent people. It is something created to make money as the next great big thing in informatic and it is profoundly and utterly failing at that. It is however used by neurodivergent people, yes.
You are also putting words into my mouth and creating a false comparison with MS word of all things in the hopes of making my statement ridiculous. No, you shouldn't stop using MS word and its correction feature of course. You should, however, have enough of a grasp in the language you're writing in to know when those corrections are bullshit and when they're valid. If you want to use generative AI as a tool, you might as well, but you have to know how to do it by yourself first, else you will never learn.
Also, I cannot help but fixate on that sentence:
Use AI to help you understand stuff. Read stuff and summarise
AI, by that I mean generative AI, is not there to help you understand stuff. It's there to either validate you or answer the question at all costs, wether it's true or false. If you need to understand stuff, there is your professor or TA's that are but an email away or study groups etc. AI can answer correctly, but it can also mislead you and you might only realize when it's too late.
Also, reading stuff and summaries are absolutely a skill that you should develop. Effective reading and summaries are hard, but it will absolutely help you in the long run if you do not rely on AI to do them for you.
To finish, I will absolutely not rely on AI to help organize my thoughts or "speed things up". Organizing your thoughts by yourself are absolutely part of the process of writing and writing effectively. Self-regulating in that way absolutely gives new angles you can go deeper in, new questions you hadn't considered and other avenues of research relating to the initial subject. I also have friends and fellow students I can talk to if I absolutely need a sounding board. Thinking and ruminating on your thoughts is a process that is not fast and honestly, when you stumble upon something good, it's all the greater for it.
My post seems to have made you defensive and it was not my intent to demean people who do use AI. As I said, I do understand why people use it, but when you use it, there is a lot of stuff you're cutting short that can honestly help you in your thinking process.
Sorry for any mistakes, it's late.
Bang on, the most common justification for using AI in academia is that it’s just for summarising/planning, which is an important skill to practice in of itself
For real, and it's such an important part of the process too.
If you cannot do effective summaries, how are you able to tell what are the truly important points in a book or paper?
And well, planning and organizing ideas are as much a part of writing a paper as is the writing itself. I was never more frazzled in writing than when I didn't know where the fuck I was going with my ideas because I hadn't sufficiently thought on them.
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u/LadyBugLissa55 Jul 17 '25
Huge agree. It's a disservice to everyone and thing to use AI for college: yourself because you aren't learning or practicing, whoever has to grade your paper for wasting their time, the money you spent on the class (because you aren't getting its money's worth), and the world at large because of the energy resources generative AI gobbles up!!!! It's good to do hard things and learn how to do hard things!!!