Faster homework, poor exam results: What AI is doing to students’ learning

EXPLAINERArtificial intelligence is spreading in classrooms, but its impact on learning depends less on the technology than on how students use it.Hundreds of millions of primary and secondary students are starting their schools for the new academic year this month. But the advent of Artificial Intelligence is changing the students’ learning process.Students and teachers are grappling with the question: what is homework for, when an AI chatbot can finish it in seconds?Some countries have moved fast with the adoption of AI. China requires at least eight hours of AI instruction a year, and in the Gulf, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have all begun integrating AI into their curricula.AI chatbots can make learning faster and easier. But what happens when students put the technology aside? How much of the learning was theirs, and how much stayed with the machine?Faster homework, weaker examsTo investigate this, David Stromberg of Stockholm University, with Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu of the University of Hong Kong, ran one of the largest studies of its kind, tracking about 27,000 students aged 12 to 18 in China for 30 months.Their working paper combined data on homework, ...