#dumbingusdown — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #dumbingusdown, aggregated by home.social.
-
What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing?
Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without #AI . And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.
By Dana Goldstein
Aug. 17, 2026Excerpt: "A growing number of educators are alarmed, and insist that students should write without A.I. These teachers are returning to #handwriting, #BlueBooks and proctored, in-class essay tests — all attempts to prevent students from outsourcing their writing to #chatbots.
"This is baffling to tech industry leaders, who see A.I. rejection as a form of educational malpractice. They point out that writing is already the leading use of A.I. in the workplace, and argue there is no need to continue suffering through the task without help. After all, they say, chatbots now exceed the ability of most human beings to produce fluent prose.
"All this points to some questions about writing itself: Why work so hard to learn it? And what do students stand to lose when they stop facing down a blank page, alone with their thoughts?"Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/us/student-writing-essays-ai.htmlArchived version:
https://archive.ph/TGoVV#CriticalThinkingSkills #TheBlankPage #AISucks #DumbingUsDown #Enshittification #Proctoring #InClassEssays
-
So, maybe I'm biased, but I personally think that degrees in #LiberalArts and #Humanities are very important in having well-rounded citizens -- who are exposed to art, history, geography, philosophy, etc. And I think that sort of education should be free and start at the high school level (or even before).
Hampshire College Will Close Amid Student Enrollment Declines
Other small private colleges like Hampshire have closed in recent years as financial pressures and competition for students increase.
by Mark Arsenault, April 14, 2026
Hampshire president, Jennifer Chrisler: “Some of it is a persistent and ill informed, I think, belief at the federal level that the only value of an education is what you earn four years after your graduation”.
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/snPv7#Authoritarianism #DumbingUsDown #CharacteristicsOfFascism #HigherEducation #Education #LearningForLearningsSake
-
Is #AI Making Us Stupider? This Study Certainly Thinks So
New research highlights the impact of AI on #CriticalThinking skills.
Posted August 21, 2025 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk
Key points
- Using AI to do the thinking impacts not only quality of work but also the long-term acquisition of skills.
- AI can have a place in education, but it needs to be carefully employed.
- Employing AI is having a detrimental impact on our ability to think critically.Excerpt: "A new study by #MIT has published initial results highlighting a likely connection between large language models (#LLMs)—colloquially grouped under the banner of AI—and a direct cognitive cost, particularly when it comes to our ability to think critically. They conducted a study using a pool of 54 participants, divided into three groups. The groups were asked to deliver an SAT-grade essay, with the first group granted access to #ChatGPT, the second to traditional #GoogleSearch, and the third with no search resources at all. Group 3 was referred to as the '#BrainOnly' group.
"Over time, each participant had to produce several essays, and each time was attached to an EEG to record brain activity across 32 regions. Consistently, ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement for every essay, and worryingly showed decreasing brain activity over time, as they progressed through the essay assignments. What this represents is the ChatGPT participants getting '#lazier' with each subsequent essay, with many resorting to copy-and-paste content by the end of the study. The study also recorded that this group 'consistently underperformed at #neural, #linguistic, and behavioral levels.' The findings make sense; with ChatGPT doing much of the work, it's easier on our #cognitive processes, and it is unsurprising that it takes less mental effort.
"Perhaps the more concerning aspect of the findings is the connection between #ReducedBrainActivity and impact on long-term learning and memory. As well as recording the participants' level of satisfaction, #curiosity, #creativity and #memory as part of the study—which were all high for both the brain-only and the search assisted groups (groups 2 and 3)—a later part of the study asked each group to reproduce one of their earlier essays, with the ChatGPT group asked to do so without access to any tools. There was little evidence of this group's participants remembering much of their previous essay, highlighting the very necessary link between #CognitiveEngagement and memory and, therefore, the potential impact on #LongTermLearning and gaining new skills. Conversely, and perhaps reassuringly, however, the brain-only group was then permitted to rewrite their essay with access to ChatGPT, with their efforts showing higher levels of creativity and stronger arguments, while retaining original thinking and unique language. This could present reassurance that, employed properly, AI has a place in enhancing learning without diminishing cognitive capability.
"Despite awaiting peer review and using only a small participant sample, the research team decided to release their findings in advance of peer feedback, in what they highlight as an urgent consideration of #LearningWithAI."
#DumbingUsDown #AIIsDumbingUsDown #AISucks #UseYourBrain #CriticalThinkingSkills #EvaluatingSources #UseAIWithCaution