Recently, I listened to the episode of my favorite podcast Binchtopia where they had a guest on to speak about things they believe are “making us more stupid”. As simple as that sounds, the episode delved into numerous topics related to our current culture and society, featuring guest P.E. Moscowitz. I’m someone who really enjoys this kind of content, where people who I think are intelligent for a variety of reasons discuss the current culture. And as we’ve seen in this past election, on both sides, is that everyone else enjoys this echo chamber too. Even being a part of this system, they touch on their own role in the landscape of cultural critique online. What I enjoyed overall about the episode was the reality that so many of the topics they discussed, like anti-intellectualism and artificial intelligence, are still very much up in the air. The discussion they had wasn’t about finding answers to any one thing, more so just providing thoughts and guidance on how to make it through this feeling of unrest. However, their view on AI and its impact on people’s desire to be creative was something I was just discussing with tons of people in my life.
When I mentioned this to my best friend, she reminded me of this poem written by a teacher on his thoughts of his students using AI for their writing.
I thought it was an important way to set the tone for what I want to say, because this is a contentious topic right now. I understand how much easier it makes certain things and the progressions in all fields it allows. That’s not the way of using AI that spurred the thoughts within this writing. I’m thinking more about a teacher who confided in my class a few weeks ago that her other classes are using resources like ChatGPT to write their assignments at such a rate that it’s exhausting her. She has a very clear AI policy, and she’s running into issues with students who use it so blatantly and without editing that it’s obvious when people are cheating. And, to be clear, this is cheating. It’s having someone or something else complete the work for you because you feel incapable or can’t be bothered to do the assignment yourself.
Personally, it feels like being in high school and younger when the COVID pandemic hit has something to do with this academic burnout. Especially amongst people my age, there was a complete breakdown of the educational system we knew. And yet for those of us who went on to more school, we were meant to fall back into a pre-pandemic level of motivation. When the world is suffering on such a large scale, it’s hard to imagine how many high school students could stay motivated while stuck at home. Using resources like AI and Google for assignments seemed like a no-brainer when it was completely barred before. At my public high school, they hardly even used computers; we did everything on paper for the most part and weren’t allowed to be on our phones. In a post-pandemic world, especially in a University setting, that’s becoming harder and harder to find. I don’t think there’s necessarily a short-term solution for this, but I think the disruption of the pandemic resulted in long-lasting impacts on academic motivation.
What about other impacts of AI beyond our college campuses? Throughout the past few years, I’ve noticed a general cultural shift towards anti-intellectualism. Clearly, this isn’t something as apparent on a place like a college campus. But if you listen to people out in public or online, people have a growing dissatisfaction with the academic system. I found a really interesting article by political scientist Matthew Motta that highlights the rise in anti-intellectualism in the last few years and some potential causes. One key part of his argument is that we have a new anti-elitist trend of anti-intellectualism that’s contributing to the rise. In my opinion, this is what popularized the idea that intellectualism is only for the educated and privileged, which is not necessarily true. From an anti-intellectual perspective, though, it becomes in line with your beliefs to not engage in complex ideas. Motta goes into interesting theories about how this brought us to our current political climate, and was a super fascinating read. This anti-intellectualism leads people to use shortcuts like AI because the longer way of doing things is not worth the time. And when you deemphasize intellectualism in a culture, it becomes easier to spread misinformation as Trump has.
Overall, I don’t blame people for holding these beliefs, and I think it has to do with a fast-paced life. The 2025 way of life makes us feel like sitting down and engaging with intellectual content that may be difficult to understand isn’t worth it. For those of us in University, it’s hard to imagine not having to think things through for the most part. But AI and technology is even impending that necessity to an extent in school. Americans who aren’t in school aren’t likely to engage in complicated ideas for the fun of it. But there’s a lot to be gained from engaging with things you don’t fully understand. This topic of conversation is completely never-ending. AI and its consequences are impending, and there’s certainly no right answer. But by looking at these phenomena and challenging the idea that everything has to be easy you can at least find a way to balance your own use of AI.