High school drama teacher Lisa Dyer has noticed in recent years that her students have become less willing to take risks and make what she calls “big choices” on stage.
Over the next decade, as artificial intelligence expands beyond algorithms that suggest everything from TV shows to watch to the next word to type in text, students will become even more reluctant to follow their instincts. She is concerned that this may be the case.
“The idea of perfection is very pervasive,” said Dyer, who teaches at J.R. Tucker High School near Richmond, Virginia, about how students think in an age increasingly dominated by AI. For her students, the essays spit out in seconds by generative AI tools like ChatGPT “look perfect. If a computer could make it for me, that would be the correct answer.”
She worries that students' creativity and confidence will be stifled, and ultimately their mental health will be hampered.
Meanwhile, Nicholas Gertler, 19, AI and education advisor at Encode Justice.Nonprofits working to advance a values-centered approach to AI are helping everything from making it easier for students with special learning needs to attend school to helping diagnose and treat diseases. We believe that AI has the potential to do this. This can be beneficial to everyone's mental health. .
And a college freshman probably wouldn't mind if a robot relieved him of his least favorite tasks, especially laundry, leaving him time for more fulfilling creative pursuits, or just relaxation.
Teens have more favorable views of AI than educators
Which vision is closer to what will actually happen? Even top engineers wonder what AI will be able to do in 10 years, let alone how it will affect the mental health and well-being of teenagers. It is not possible to say clearly what will be given.
But one thing is clear: High school students and educators have very different views on what AI will mean for young people's mental health over the next decade, according to two recent EdWeek Research Center surveys. It means that it is.
Educators generally have dark ideas. More than two-thirds (69%) of teachers, school and community leaders expect AI to have a negative impact on the mental health of their teens over the next 10 years. Almost a quarter (24%) think it will be 'very negative'. The survey of 595 educators conducted between December 21, 2023 and January 2, 2024 found that only 14% expected a positive impact, with only 14% expecting a “very positive” impact. Only 1% thought it would.
Teenagers themselves are more optimistic. Only a quarter of participants in a recent EdWeek Research Center survey predict that AI will have a negative impact on mental health over the next 10 years. A slightly higher proportion (30 percent) actually expect there to be a positive effect, of which he expects 10 percent to be “very positive.” The survey was conducted between February 9th and March 4th among 1,056 teenagers.
These findings are consistent with how different generations have responded to the introduction of new technologies, from television to the Internet to smartphones, said Elon University resident scholar and director of the Center for Digital Futures Envisioning. Lee Rainey said. He has been studying the impact of technology on society for decades.
“Throughout history, young people have been more interested in new technology than older people,” he said. “Young people tend to be early adopters, they tend to be enthusiastic, and they're more likely to see old ways of doing things as upgraded with new technology.”
“For them, this is a natural progression.”
Davidson Academy Online Humanities Lecturer Carly Gantus said today's teens are particularly concerned about AI, as “young people have never lived a life without interacting with AI in some way.” He said they were likely to have a positive outlook on the impact on mental health. Private virtual school. “They always had Siri and Alexa in their house. They always had turn-by-turn navigation. [GPS] Their phones contain early AI that we don't even think of as AI anymore. I'm sure this is a natural progression for them. ”
Eva Javidic, a senior at Millennium 6-12 Collegiate Academy in Tamarac, Fla., had a similar view.
“I think Gen Z and young people in general are all too used to hearing about the next big thing, like advancements in technology,” said Scott, a student facilitator for the National Association of Secondary School Principals' Student Leadership Network on Mental Health. Havidich says. “It becomes our daily life.”
And while adults are trying to use AI to crack down on cheating,Makenna, a high school student in Kansas, said she preferred to be called by her first name so she could talk openly about the issue.
“Students at my school are completing their assignments through AI, and to be honest, I think it helps their mental health because they don’t feel as stressed,” said Makena, who said she enjoys working with generative AI. He added that he had never tried to disguise it as his own work.
Join the army of trolling bots
But educators who think AI will negatively impact teens' mental health over the next decade point to deepfakes.—Video, audio, or photo that is manipulated by AI and created using someone’s voice or likeness without their permission—as Exhibit A of the claim.
Students have already been in trouble for creating and sharing deepfake pornographic images of their classmates, including last fall when a male high school student in New Jersey manipulated an image of a female classmate. It also includes those that did. And just recently, four students were expelled from a middle school in Beverly Hills, California, for creating and distributing deepfake photos. of other students.
Jeremy Sell, a high school English teacher in California, said AI also has great potential to intensify cyberbullying. “Cyberbullying and everything that goes with it will be made even worse and more difficult with AI,” he says.
As generative AI develops over the next decade, creating these types of deepfakes will certainly become easier and more prevalent, Sell added.
In addition, AI could exacerbate “common trolling that just mocks people, attacks people, and makes people's lives miserable,” Rainey said. “An active human troll will not only go after people, but will also work with an army of bots to accomplish that goal.” It may appear that
I can't “believe my eyes”
Kaywin Cottle, who teaches an AI course at Burley Middle School in Burley, Idaho, said the ability to use AI to fabricate information has implications beyond just cyberbullying. Once students understand how easily images can be manipulated, it becomes difficult to take what they see on the internet at face value.
“They know they can make a fake that looks real. They won't even be able to believe their eyes, what they see, what they hear, what they read,” Cottle said.
Further developments in AI could exacerbate another problem: students' inability to resist social media, or screens in general..
Some Cell University students spend their lives glued to their devices because of social media algorithms. Sites like TikTok that leverage AI are very effective, he said.
Over time, he predicts these algorithms will become smarter, more powerful, and even more addictive, making virtual worlds more appealing and non-virtual worlds harder to navigate. .
Over the next decade, bots may also become more human-like, creating a landscape similar to the one depicted in the 2013 film “Her,” in which a lonely man falls in love with an AI-powered operating system.
Rainey said teens are entering a world where “their relationships with bots and synthetic environments are richer, more engaging, and more immersive than the messy and boring real-world relationships they have.” I predict that they may be drawn in.” complicated. ”
“What is the modern moment?”
Meanwhile, anticipating the negative impact AI will have on the mental health of teens, educators are projecting their own concerns about the potential for AI to have a disruptive impact on their work. You may have.Gantas suggested.
“Our education system was designed to create factory workers,” Gantus said. “And the AI says, 'We don't need factory workers anymore.'”
Teachers and students, along with the rest of society, may have to work through that kind of anxiety together, Rainey said.
“Our intelligence and smarts have been upgraded through this tool, so basically, how do we take advantage of it without becoming its slave?” he said. “That's what modern times are all about. It's about how we take in the good that can happen and reduce the bad.”
