Facing AI Dependency and Addressing This

As more students find difficulty proposing a topic for their Reading and Writing essay, PracRes study, or perhaps their MIL Major Assessment, they find the struggle of coming up with and generating their own ideas. Throughout a student’s life, there are definitely times when they experienced a stump, resorting to tools such as ChatGPT for help creating ideas. However, people must be able to create their own original ideas in the face of AI dependency.

Why must people be wary of being too dependent on AI? This is due to over-dependence on AI leading to multiple negative effects. Kinza Yasar, a technical writer, says that one of these negative effects is being less critical when it comes to problem solving and gaining information (2023). On top of this, a study by Ahmad et al. states that because of automated work, people become more lazy when AI is used. This also negatively affects the capabilities we have to make decisions, not letting us use our cognitive skills when presented with automated information (2023). We are not able to exercise our brain anymore because the answer to the questions that we have is already presented to us. 

With this, there are multiple ways to combat this dependency. A writer by the name ‘Afzal’ shared how people could limit the use of AI by setting boundaries and finding substitutes to AI while accomplishing tasks (2023). Additionally, an article by Alexandria Simms asked AI itself how to not become over-reliant on AI, and it was mentioned that implementing critical thinking and judging based on what people already know could help lessen the dependence on AI (2023). While ironic that AI was able to answer this concern, it was further reflected on that people coming up with their own thoughts is one way they could promote critical thinking, and more importantly, a way for them to stay original and combat AI dependency. 

To be able to generate original ideas and practice creativity, Bruce Fischer, the Professor of Project Management at Elmhurst University, shares how people can form new ideas. According to him, people need to follow ‘ideation’, the process of generating ideas, by asking the who, what, when, why, and how questions, taking note of random ideas, connecting ideas with similar ideas, and actually trying out an idea by conducting tests and implementing them. While people could go through setbacks when thinking of ideas, Fischer mentioned that a creative person has persistence and resilience as their traits, not fully expecting the easy way out and determined to reach whatever goal that needs to be met. As for actually implementing ideas, a support system of other people could help out a lot, along with keeping in mind that this entire process is nonstop and constant (2022). 

Some people might argue that AI is a great tool for gaining ideas, and while true, students would immediately resort to AI when faced with the challenge of coming up with ideas instead of trying harder and taking the time to think when this is done too much. Again, relying too much on AI could give rise to laziness and lack of decision making skills, so being able to minimize the use of AI will be able to prevent these negative effects. Students are brought to school in order to learn, and to learn responsibly as well.