In the 1980s, I established a research clinic at the University of Massachusetts that identified diagnostic and intervention procedures for students with learning disabilities. On the intervention side, I thought that computer-based educational games would be ideal for developing academic skills. Much to my dismay, I quickly discovered they were not.

My clinic students got on the internet and identified cheat codes that would enable them to solve the game with virtually no educational gain. Having defeated the game, they had no interest in continuing play. That resulted in my development of a personal maxim: For many students, if there is an easy way to educationally move on without doing any work, they will take it.

As my years as a university professor progressed, I discovered the maxim was true for some college students as well. Consider that maxim at work in our current educational environment. Most writing assignments nowadays at all educational levels have been rendered useless as measures of educational attainment, and I recently read that college admission procedures have all but given up on using essays as an accompaniment to other measures of merit. The reason for these decisions is that AI can write very good essays, thus negating their worth as an evaluation or screening tool. This has resulted in the reemergence of the dreaded blue book for many in class writing activities.

Consider also recent stories indicating that AI tools can pass state-level law bar exams, that AI can pass the majority of undergraduate courses at MIT, and that AI, supplemented by text-to-speech tools, can provide a user with oral versions of most books that might be found on required reading lists at any educational level.

The unfortunate conclusion is that AI will read, write, and do math for anyone that might want to use it with minimal intellectual contribution on their part. We have now moved to an educational world aligned with an attitude expressed by one of my 9th grade severely dyslexic students years ago. He asked me, “Why should I learn how to read? I can always find someone to read for me.”

As far as I can see, getting an education will be a worthless activity for many young people that live by the cheat code maxim. AI can do everything they might need to do with little effort on their part.

James Royer

Northampton