AI Used: ChatGPT for prompts & Grammarly for spell-check

College students should not use AI for academic work because, in both the MIT study and our own, it was shown that people do not remember their work, don’t really learn, and it takes away the ability to think cognitively. A quote from the study that shows this is, “LLM-to-Brain participants showed weaker neural connectivity — Brain-to-LLM participants demonstrated higher memory recall” (MIT). By studying the brain patterns through EEGs and recall tests, it shows real-time effects of AI usage on the participants.

A thing to note, however, is that the study’s results were,”context-dependent and focused on writing an essay in an educational setting and may not generalize across tasks” (MIT). This does point to the fact that the study is not catch-all and does not address all things that AI can, for example, do or affect. But it does focus on it in an academic-based field, which is what we are discussing.

With all this in mind, I personally do not think AI should be used in academic tasks. To me, the point of college is to learn, and to do that, you need to be able to remember it as well. With the results of low recall with AI usage, it does not support my ideals of why I go to college. It also can teach incorrectly, if not at all. With major tools used by students like Grammarly, the ability to check grammar or people’s blind trust in it affects grades and mental cognition. On the other hand, it can help with disabilities such as dyslexia. It can spell-check for you if needed, but it can also guess the wrong word you were looking for.

A test I did was asking ChatGPT 2 prompts:

• Give me an outline of a professional email to a teacher asking for an extension.
• Write me a professional email to a teacher asking for an extension.

Image for Prompt 1- It outlines what I need to do and has me still format and learn how to write an email. It gives me a simple outline instead of guessing what I want to say, how I speak, the environment I’m in, etc.

Image for Prompt 2- It writes it for me and interestingly gives an excuse of just having “difficulty completing”.  It assumes the situation; I could be sick or injured. It fully chooses the format and tone of the message. 

This takes me into how I would use or not use AI in academics for the future. I like how it gives an outline; this could be related to finding key points in reading. I can then do the reading and look for these ideas to focus on, but also find things in the reading on my own. I would not have it do the reading for me, or, connected to my example, write my email, because then I do not control what I am taking from the reading and am not learning on my own.

Through this process, I have further supported my opinion on not wanting to use AI in academics. As we continue to test prompts and learn the inner workings of LLMs, I further wish to rely on myself. We have proven in class that our brains are more helpful than a fake one. We learn through ours, remember through ours, and we most importantly think.

WORKS CITED

Nataliya Kosmyna et al, MIT Media Lab (2025). Your Brain on ChatGPT: Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task

Image 1. Screenshot of ChatGPT response to “Give me an outline of a professional email to a teacher for an extension” prompt.

Image 2. Screenshot of ChatGPT response to “Write me a professional email to a teacher asking for an extension” prompt.