Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing education while making learning more accessible but also triggering debates on its impact.

While students hail AI tools like ChatGPT for improving their knowing experience, speakers are raising issues about the growing reliance on AI, which they argue fosters laziness and weakens academic integrity, specifically with lots of students not able to protect their tasks or given works.

Prof. Isaac Nwaogwugwu, a speaker at the University of Lagos, in an interview with Nairametrics, revealed aggravation over the growing dependence on AI-generated responses among trainees recounting a recent experience he had.

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“I provided a task to my MBA students, and out of over 100 trainees, about 40% submitted the exact same responses. These trainees did not even know each other, but they all utilized the exact same AI tool to produce their reactions,” he stated.

He noted that this pattern prevails amongst both undergraduate and postgraduate students however is particularly concerning in part-time and fakenews.win distance learning programs.

“AI is a major challenge when it pertains to assignments. Many students no longer think critically-they just go on the internet, create answers, and send,” he included.

Surprisingly, some speakers are also implicated of over-relying on AI, setting a cycle where both educators and trainees turn to AI for benefit instead of intellectual rigor.

This argument raises important questions about the role of AI in academic stability and student advancement.

According to a UNESCO report, while ChatGPT reached 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, only one nation had released guidelines on generative AI since July 2023.

As of December 2024, ChatGPT had over 300 million people utilizing the AI chatbot weekly and 1 billion messages sent every day worldwide.

Decline of academic rigor

University speakers are progressively worried about trainees sending AI-generated tasks without truly understanding the content.

Dr. Felix Echekoba, a lecturer at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, expressed his issues to Nairametrics about trainees progressively relying on ChatGPT, just to deal with responding to fundamental concerns when checked.

“Many students copy from ChatGPT and send polished projects, however when asked standard concerns, they go blank. It’s disappointing due to the fact that education has to do with finding out, not just passing courses,” he stated.

- Prof. Nwaogwugwu mentioned that the increasing number of top-notch graduates can not be completely credited to AI however admitted that even high-performing students utilize these tools.
“A first-rate student is a first-rate student, AI or not, however that does not indicate they do not cheat. The benefits of AI might be peripheral, however it is making trainees dependent and less analytical,” he stated.

- Another lecturer, Dr. Ereke, from Ebonyi State University, raised a various issue that some lecturers themselves are guilty of the same practice.
“It’s not simply trainees utilizing AI slackly. Some lecturers, out of their own laziness, generate lesson notes, course outlines, marking plans, and even examination questions with AI without examining them. Students in turn use AI to produce answers. It’s a cycle of laziness and it is eliminating genuine knowing,” he lamented.

Students’ perspectives on usage

Students, on the other hand, state AI has enhanced their knowing experience by making scholastic materials more easy to understand and accessible.

- Eniola Arowosafe, a 300-level Business Administration trainee at Unilag, shared how AI has substantially helped her knowing by breaking down complex terms and offering summaries of lengthy texts.
“AI assisted me understand things more quickly, especially when handling complex topics,” she explained.

However, she remembered an instance when she used AI to send her job, just for her lecturer to right away acknowledge that it was created by ChatGPT and decline it. Eniola noted that it was a good-bad result.

- Bryan Okwuba, who just recently graduated with a superior degree in Pharmacy Technology from the University of Lagos, firmly believes that his scholastic success wasn’t due to any AI tool. He attributes his outstanding grades to actively interesting by asking concerns and concentrating on locations that speakers stress in class, as they are typically shown in exam questions.
“It’s everything about being present, taking note, and taking advantage of the wealth of knowledge shared by my coworkers,” he said,

- Tunde Awoshita, a final-year marketing student at UNIZIK, admits to occasionally copying straight from ChatGPT when dealing with numerous due dates.
“To be sincere, there are times I copy directly from ChatGPT when I have numerous deadlines, and I know I’m guilty of that, many times the lecturers don’t get to review them, but AI has actually also assisted me find out much faster.”

Balancing AI’s function in education

Experts believe the solution lies in AI literacy