HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Kids across the Tampa Bay area are preparing to go back to school, and we're looking into how artificial intelligence is impacting education.
AI is becoming more popular and we know parents had concerns about how ChatGPT and other tools would be used in the classroom.
We spoke to parents, teachers and students about artificial intelligence. One professor said he is seeing it negatively impact learning, but others said AI is part of our lives now, and they want to teach kids how to use it ethically.
“Artificial intelligence is here to stay. It’s not going anywhere,” Joanne Glenn, principal of Angeline Academy of Innovation, said.
Glenn said she is teaching her students how to ethically use AI to set them up for success in the future.
We also spoke to Luis Vargas. He works in tech and also has a son going into his sophomore year.
"I think it's very important the way AI is going is going to be in our lives moving forward," Vargas said.
He explained that he uses it every day in his career and thinks children should get acclimated to the new tool early on.
“Getting them to understand how to use it responsibly and have it as an aid to make things a little easier and faster for them is very important,” Vargas said.
Meanwhile, robotics students at Angeline Academy said they are excited to incorporate AI more into the classroom setting this year.
Josiah Mirville is going into 10th grade.
"I'm excited about it as far as it goes for the robotics program because it means we can kind of implement machine learning for the things we build and create," Mirville said.
Some people are on board with the AI; others have concerns.
“I’ve noticed a growing number of students rely on ChatGPT to do their writing for them," John Licato with the Computer Science and Engineering Department at USF said.
He said he thinks artificial intelligence can have a beneficial outcome in the classroom setting, but he is seeing it create bad habits and poor writing skills.
“As a result, we end up with this poor writing, and it’s not clear how to improve that or motivate them to care since they have these tools,” Licato said.
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