AI in productivity: Where you should use it as a student (ethically).

As a writer I can’t really say that AI for students is great and 100% correct since I like the process of gathering information, writing it, rewriting it and finally showing it to the world. But hell, I can’t deny that I haven’t used ChatGPT for school.

AI in student productivity is an ethical conundrum, to say the least. Long story short, having ChatGPT write your essays or projects is NOT okay. But is there a part of a students life that can be improved by AI tools ETHICALLY?

TL;DR: Sure, people have learned, achieved, and innovated long before AI existed — but today, it's an incredibly powerful tool that can make the journey a whole lot smoother.

Right now, a lot of AI produced content is GARBAGE. Literally, this is a system computers work on. GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. The quality of the output relies entirely on the quality of the input.

If you tell ChatGPT to summarize, let’s say, Macbeths soliloquy from the play Macbeth Act 3 Sc 1, it’ll give you nothing but a summary. It won’t explain how this dialogue changes the whole tone of the play. But if you ask it to refer to the text and explore the themes of ambition vs morality it’ll give you a detailed answer. The quality of your prompt makes you a smart user of AI. A smart user of AI:

1. Is specific in the prompt

2. Realizes AI can’t think and can only supplement your thinking.

AI in Studying

AI is great for explaining topics you don’t get. A big reason why people don’t clarify doubts or questions in class is that it can feel embarrassing. We know that it isn’t, but it seems daunting when everyone gets the concept and you don’t.

AI like ChatGPT is programmed to be nice to you. It can explain the same thing to you MULTIPLE times in different ways with different analogies and never get tired or irritated. (Can’t say this applies to humans most days)

What AI Can’t Do:

Write your essays. Well, technically it can. But AI can’t emulate your understanding of what you make it write about. The whole point of education is to learn a basic framework for how things work. You don’t go to engineering school to learn how to make one bridge, you learn how to make any bridge you wan’t. AI is artificial. It is nothing without your input, so using your brain and LEARNING your material is kind of necessary to use AI for school in the first place.

AI in Co Curricular

I have used ChatGPT to help me prepare for debates. It can follow any format you wan’t, review your speeches, give you rebuttals and maybe help you see the opposing sides POV.

Adding the dramatic flair to a speech or presentation is exceptionally hard when you can’t seem to learn the speech in the first place. Right now, I’m working on a two-person presentation, and practicing with my partner is great, but it’s not always possible. So, I decided to feed my speech into ChatGPT and ask it to act as my partner, speaking the other person’s lines while I deliver mine.

If I got my lines right, it moved on. If I stumbled, we’d repeat the exchange until I perfected it. I cannot describe how helpful this has been because its reduced the amount of anxiety I feel and increased my productivity.

AI in THINKING?

Thinking and feeling are uniquely human. So the use of AI in that feels like it’s stripping us of our humanity (I could rant on about that for ages).

Yet again, smart implementation can maximize your productivity.

Would I recommend venting to the AI model? No. You should never disclose personal details of your life to chat bots because they use your conversations to train themselves. There is a chance your real life drama could be taken and adapted for someone else’s AI generated story. It happens.

But thinking is something that can be streamlined by ChatGPT (not emulated). I like to say the I have a ‘buzzy’ brain. It’s constantly thinking, never quiet.

80% of the thoughts I have are about the mundanities of life or pure garbage. But 20% of those can be used for something productive. This is where AI can help you streamline your ideas and thoughts especially if you’re a messy thinker.

Whenever I have a million things on my mind or need to work on a blog post (like this one), I talk to the AI and let it organize my ideas into an outline that's easy to follow. It's like having a personal assistant who helps put my scattered ideas into a cohesive structure. Many of my blog posts have started as chaotic ideas that were then refined and organized by a chatbot.

AI: Yes or No?

I guess I’m saying Yes to the AI! Right now the world is really focused on productivity and maximum production. You can go against the grain, be slow placed and produce quality. You can do what everyone else is doing, create quantity over quality content just to try and get forward. Or you can sit somewhere in the middle, like Vanta.

Till then!

Love,

Vanta <3