How I use AI in my daily life: As a student

Let me ask you, how do you use AI? Do you find yourself using it daily? What do you use it for? The topic of AI has been a prominent one in today's world. Debates on if it is good or bad, what it should be used for, and how one day AI will take over humans. I want to walk readers through the perspective of a student on AI. It isn't uncommon now to know college students use AI practically everyday. But what exactly do we use it for?

As a student, I have heard all the ways I should not be using AI but I also have heard all the ways AI can benefit a student. To me, AI can be scary at times, but I also believe it to be very essential in todays world. Instead of working against AI, we should be learning how to use it while still understanding how to make our own decisions without it.

For me, I find AI to be very useful. In acedmics, I never use AI to write an essay for me or do my homework. Instead I use it to help me understand complex information, lead me in the right direction, or review essays for grammer fixes. If I am reading from a textbook for my PR class, for example, and I come across a sentence or passage that I am unable to fully comprehend, I ask ChatGPT to simplify it. I will also use it to help me go down a clear path when I am writing an essay. I do this by having it write an outline for me or help me brainstorm on what to write about. It's normal to have a writers block when writing something for a class, but when I put my ideas into ChatGPT and ask it to expand on my own ideas, I find that to be really helpful. It not only helps me write my essay but also helps my brain think or connect new ideas that I had not thought of previosuly.

For some of my classes, I have to do graphic design. When I feel stuck on what elements, graphics, designs, or fonts to add, I ask ChatGPT what would make it visually better.

Besides acedmics, I use AI in my everyday life. For example, if I am making chicken nuggets in the airfryer, I'll ask ChatGPT to give me directions just to ensure I am getting the best chicken from the airfryer. Sometimes I use AI to ask for advice. I am an overthinker and when I start to get stressed about a desicion I have to make, I just ask AI. Sometimes I listen to it and other times I don't. AI is also helpful in my daily life by asking it even the most simple questions. If I have a question about a TV show or movie I am watching and I want a specific and quick answer without having to go through seven Google pages, AI is where I go.

Society is scared of AI advancing, which, yes, that can be scary, but I think humans are smart enough to learn to incorporate it into their daily life without losing the ability to think for themselves or take their jobs. Besides, the jobs that have been said AI might take over are impossible to do so. Musicans, artists, journliasts, and other creative careers have and always will be done by people. Only people know how to touch the lives of others with their work, something AI can't do. If AI were to take over all these jobs, it wouldn't associate with humans and their emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and values, and all of these careers would ciest to exist.

However, I do think there needs to be some form of limitation on the use of AI for younger generations. Since my generation and the ones before me have lived without AI before, we could live without it now. However, if younger generations adopt AI into their daily lives for school or anything, it can become problematic.

Learning to work with AI and not having AI work for you while you sit back and relax is what should be taught in schools. If we keep pushing the idea that AI should never be used, more people will have a desire to use it. So, in my opinion, AI is helpful to me and it can be for other people too, you just have to learn how to use it as a tool rather than a thinking or homework machine.

If you want to learn more about AI in schools and the usage of it among college students, check out this article by the University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign.

https://education.illinois.edu/about/news-events/news/article/2024/10/24/ai-in-schools--pros-and-cons