I taught HSC Economics and Legal Studies for many years before becoming a Principal. I frequently told my students that the key to HSC and university success, and career advancement, in Economics and Law was to be able to write and speak with clarity, accuracy and depth. Therefore, I read with great interest an article by Mark Edele, Professor of History at Melbourne University, who shared his conviction that a core skill for his students is the ability to write clearly, accurately and persuasively.
Professor Edele expressed his concern that students are increasingly relying on generative AI to produce essays that they pass off as their own. He acknowledged that AI can produce “passable, if bland, essays”. Schools and universities are investing a considerable amount of time and effort to identify students who cheat using AI and penalise them accordingly.
It strikes me that students who cheat using AI are near sighted. If they don’t get caught, end up with good marks for little effort and graduate with a degree, have these students stopped to ask themselves “what now?”. Even if they manage to deceive their first employer, who assumes that the degree they received was a result of their own effort and ability, it will soon become apparent that the new graduate isn’t as flash as she or he first seemed.
When their employer asks a complex question, will they be able to respond with a cogent, accurate answer, or will they say “hang on for a minute”, duck into another room, type the question into Google Gemini and come back with a half-baked answer? Their new career might be short lived.
Professor Edele went further, contending that students dependent on AI lose their ability to create.
The stained AI use demonstratively makes us dumber. It leads to what teenagers call brain rot…… As we de-skill ourselves as writers and thinkers by using statistical models that predict the most likely sequence of words on the basis of past patterns, we lose our ability to create.
(The Australian 24/7/26)
Taking the easy route by allowing AI to achieve for you is not just harmful for an individual's long-term career. It is harmful for society. When we collectively lose our ability to create because of an over dependence on AI, our culture and way of life end up being shaped by machines, not by people whom God has given a range of skills that should be used to glorify Him and to shape a sophisticated, diverse and cohesive society.
Therefore our school, and society more broadly, need to keep considering how we can selectively use AI as a tool and never allow it to be our master.
Finally, to reassure you, this article was written entirely by me – I read, thought and then shaped, and reshaped, my words. I trust that RHAC students will continue to enjoy the challenge, and appreciate the importance, of thinking and writing without help from AI.
