In education, ‘AI is inevitable,’ and students who don’t use it will ‘be at a disadvantage’: AI founder

Students who do not use artificial intelligence in their schooling and college application process will be at a disadvantage, an AI founder told FOX Business. 

“AI in education is as inevitable as the internet or a search engine, which also people were skeptical about in the beginning,” said Julia Dixon, a former tutor who created ES.AI, a generative AI tool for college applications. “Students who never use AI and those kinds of resources that can really up-level the work that they’re doing are going to be at a disadvantage.”

“The sooner that students can get familiar with this tech, the more ahead they’ll be in the rest of the education and professional world,” she continued. 

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Artificial intelligence has proven it can write not just emails, essays and epitaphs, but poems, songs and movie scripts, too. As the nascent technology makes writing easier, students using generative AI to write essays and do homework have been criticized as cheaters. 

“If you go into a library right now, you can see sort of everyone is using ChatGPT,” one college student told Fox News in April. Teachers, meanwhile, have said AI in classrooms can be a threat or a benefit to students’ educational outcomes.

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“Using AI to help with your college application is not cheating as long as you’re using ethical tools and ethical practices,” Dixon told FOX Business. “You should never submit AI-generated work as a final product.”

Using AI to brainstorm ideas, outline essays and edit students’ writing is similar to using a human tutor, the founder said. 

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“I think any teacher or counselor would approve of and even encourage the use of those kind of tutors if their students have access to them,” Dixon continued. “AI can be thought about in the same way.”

In April, a tech entrepreneur told Fox News that AI developments would help America’s “broken” education system. New York City Public Schools, for example, banned ChatGPT in January before reversing course in May. 

Dixon said she hopes products like ES.AI will help improve students’ access to tutors and educational resources.  

Students need to know how to make AI “work for them” so it doesn’t become “a replacement for them,” she told FOX Business.

“Students who aren’t learning how to use [AI] properly or using it, in general, are going to be at a disadvantage,” she continued. “So no, it’s not cheating.”

To watch the full interview with Dixon, click here.