Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) shapes nearly every aspect of daily life. From checking the weather to learning how we share genetic material with bananas, to even writing an absence email for class, its presence is inescapable. So what does AI’s impact really mean for students navigating an increasingly digital world? Predicting its growth is complex—the impact it already has, and the promise it holds for the future, make its future uncertain and require careful consideration of both its benefits and risks. In education, specifically, this creates real tension: AI has the potential to enhance learning through accessibility and personalization, but in the wrong hands, it can become a shortcut that undermines critical thinking, integrity, and student growth. 

Despite the risks of misuse, AI offers powerful tools to enhance education when used responsibly. Mr. May, one of Greeley’s AP US History teachers, sees this firsthand: “I use AI for quick factual understanding, but it is important to me to engage with my texts and to feel free to synthesize information across all aspects of life—to look at a historical or political event on my own terms. The question when students use AI is how it affects their relationship with education and their stamina. If a student asks, ‘Can I use AI?’ You can ask back: ‘Does it help you learn, or does it help you avoid learning?’” At its core, AI is designed to provide guidance and support across various areas of life, including academics. For students, this means that when applied thoughtfully, AI can be a force for good, enhancing their learning experience without compromising its quality. Take Acely for example, a platform that builds personalized SAT material based on one’s current and target scores, offers over 7500 practice questions and 25 full-length tests, and includes an AI tutor that provides hints and step-by-step explanations while a student works.  Acely allows students to practice at their own pace, focus on areas of weakness, and receive immediate feedback, making traditional test preparation, once a rigorous feat, infinitely more accessible and efficient. In the past, the SAT has become increasingly crucial for getting high school students into top colleges and universities. However, there’s a correlation between students’ ability to afford tutors and higher SAT scores. This is ultimately a flaw in the admissions process; however, with tools like Acely, students with lower-income backgrounds have the opportunity to achieve the same marks at a fraction of the price. Acely is a clear example of AI used as a supplement for students studying for the SAT, offering sufficient practice and support while still keeping prices low for those who can’t afford expensive tutors. 

While Acely demonstrates how AI can transform test prep, other applications, such as Grammarly, highlight that older tools have long shaped learning, particularly by helping students improve their grammar and writing. Grammarly has become a staple in the classroom over the past decade, especially for me. In this writer’s opinion, as a paid user, Grammarly has been a big help with schoolwork, boosting points in areas that require clear grammar and punctuation. I’ve had Grammarly Premium since the start of high school, and it’s one of the most useful subscriptions I’ve had. However, a definite fault of the tool is that it creates a luxury of laziness and safety that students in the past never had to deal with. I find that without Grammarly, many of my projects and essays would not be as well-written.

 In the past few years, newer AI platforms have been tailored specifically to school-related tasks, such as ihatereading.com, a site that allows students to summarize their assigned papers and readings in seconds, removing the fundamental work of grappling with material and building critical thinking skills. For me, I enjoy using AI as a study tool, a fact checker, and for feedback. However, using AI to completely replace schoolwork is an unrealistic and self-harming approach that would negatively impact anyone through overreliance. When students skip reading and analysis, they forfeit the opportunity to practice essential skills such as identifying arguments, utilizing evidence, and forming independent conclusions. Over time, this reliance erodes the very habits of the human mind that academic work is meant to improve upon. As a result, students may achieve quick gains in the moment, but they ultimately suffer long-term declines in critical thinking across all walks of life, not just within school. The danger is not limited only to reading shortcuts, though. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude can produce complete essays, solve college-level math problems, or draft sophisticated lab reports in mere minutes. While the outputs may appear polished, they skip the gritty, difficult process in which real learning occurs. In the long run, overreliance on AI risks creating a generation that knows how to use AI but struggles with critical and independent thinking.

The misuse of AI tools not only weakens students’ critical thinking and work ethic but also creates serious ethical problems, including plagiarism and academic dishonesty. In fact, in the 2023-2024 class, 63% of teachers reported that students had been disciplined for using generative AI on assignments, up from 48% the previous year, indicating the growing presence of AI misuse in academic settings (Prothero, 2024). The problem isn’t limited to students, though. Mr. May has seen unreliability even in AI tools designed for teachers: “We have the Brisk AI feature in our Google Docs, and I’ve seen some inconsistencies—responses that are inaccurate given a consistent and steady rubric, inflated or deflated grades based on the AI’s synopsis. It may help me get started, but I shouldn’t rely on it primarily, as my job is to help you become critical thinkers and reach your goals. To use AI completely would be doing all of you a disservice.” Creating bad habits with AI may not only affect a student’s current grade but also carry on to their collegiate and professional careers. When high school students plagiarize essays or assignments, the immediate consequences may be as minor as a poor grade or a call home. Yet if these habits carry into college, the stakes become far greater: students risk academic probation, expulsion, and the long-term loss of learning opportunities, all because of shortcuts and bad habits they started in high school.

The overall consequences of AI misuse aren’t limited to education; they also pose risks to future job opportunities and security. Students who enter professional careers, especially in science, math, and tech fields, traditionally spend long hours on coding, debugging, and problem-solving; however, today, advanced AI models can generate entire blocks of code, troubleshoot errors, and even design intricate algorithms in just seconds. For students entering these fields, the shift to more automated work can feel like both an opportunity and a challenge. On the one hand, AI reduces tedious work, allowing programmers to shift their focus to innovation and solving big-picture problems. On the other hand, it raises concerns about job security, as work that previously required specialized training can now be performed with minimal human input or oversight. Recent data show that software developers aged 22-25 have experienced nearly 20% job losses since the late 2022 rise in AI, while older developers have remained relatively stable, underscoring the vulnerability of entry-level roles today (Brynjolfsson et al., 2025). Mr. May sees a parallel trend in education: “Since the dawn of AI in schools, we’ve seen overall drops across all types of academic metrics, including SAT scores. What’s interesting is that the strongest recovery rates have come from states like Louisiana and Alabama—smaller budgets, less reliance on tech—and that data makes you wonder what it really means when we measure learning in the AI era.” If students lean too heavily on AI during their education, they risk lacking foundational knowledge needed to adapt when outputs fall short or when employers demand original thinking. While AI may streamline essential components of computer science and tech-related jobs, it also threatens entry-level roles, making it more important than ever for students to develop skills that AI cannot replicate: creativity, critical thinking, and ethical judgment.

Much like when the Internet first emerged, many people feared AI would take over the world as we knew it. Concerns about technology disrupting daily life spread widely during that time, yet as the Internet developed, people began to see it as a tool rather than a threat. AI will likely follow the same pattern. Even though it may replace certain jobs, the real danger isn’t AI itself but the risk that people lose essential skills through laziness, overreliance, and lack of effort, weakening their ability to think and work independently. Ultimately, AI is a tool whose value depends entirely on how we use it. In education, in particular, the stakes are especially high—left unchecked, AI misuse risks eroding critical thinking, creativity, and patience. But, used responsibly, AI can make learning more personalized, engaging, and accessible. Solving this requires shared responsibility: teachers treating AI as a supplement, students using it for guidance rather than a replacement, and schools updating their policies to reflect both ethical and technological literacy. The real question isn’t whether AI will shape education, but how we’ll shape AI’s role in it. As Mr. May puts it, “I wish I had a crystal ball. Every month, something new rolls out that genuinely changes how we teach, learn, and work together. AI isn’t going away, but different institutions are handling it very differently—some Yale professors are doubling down on handwritten work and primary sources. What I’d love to see more conversation about is the social and environmental impact: the sustainability of these systems, the data centers, and the energy demands. Schools haven’t even started grappling with that yet.” His uncertainty reflects a broader truth: no one has all the answers. If we approach AI with care and integrity, it can strengthen the human mind rather than replace it, ensuring future generations grow more capable, not less.