In February our own Dr Jodi Burkett posted this article on the problems of relying on AI for the study of history. So we thought it would be interesting to follow up with some of our students’ views on the topic. For their Thinking Like an Historian Module, first-year history students were asked to read two essays, one written with and one without AI, and then give their personal thoughts about and experiences with this technology, and what they think is useful and permissible use of these types of tools at university. Their opinions provide useful food for thought for educators.
Some students felt they could cope better without using AI:
Personally, I do not agree with the use of AI when completing university work. … I feel that it subtracts from a student’s ability to think and act for themselves … I believe it takes away a sense of individuality from a student’s work, their thought process and overall work is not entirely their own if they used AI to prompt them in the right direction. – GG
I can see that AI is not going away, and that is reflected by the University’s changing policy on it, but I would not use AI in any shape or form for any part of my degree. …a big part of why I am doing a degree in History is to develop my critical thinking skills, which in an age where there is so much disinformation about (thanks in part to unregulated generative AI) I think is incredibly important. – OW
I stand in opposition to generative AI in every facet. Not only is it a large waste of natural resources it is also encouraging laziness and reducing creativity in the public. I don’t think generative AI has any place in academia or in universities. These services are not reliable enough to deserve the faith that people put in them and improper usage of them … Even when people claim to use AI in a useful manner, going through the tedious process of fact-checking and proofreading the entire generated output, … it is an inferior regurgitation of ideas … that lacks any argument, perspective or humanity beyond the surface level. – TD
I do not agree with the usage of any AI within University study, it is a dangerous resource … Essay B authored by a human possessed a vastly superior linguistic structure, it was clear to see the passion and emotion invested into the piece whereas the AI alternative was quite frankly boring … – GS
AI can be useful for compressing large reports – US Federal Administrator reading a draft report to congress, 2010, Wikimedia Commons
AI can be useful for summarising large texts/articles, but I am stubborn to utilise it because I believe that one will lose their basic skills if they have to rely on something else to complete a simple task such as comprehending a piece of text.
Grammarly sorts out your grammar, helps you to reword phrases and gives you synonyms for words. The thesaurus exists, and I use the online version regularly. I am fairly confident in my grammar and punctuation; I don’t need to rely upon AI for that. My only issue is when I have poorly phrased something and it’s chunky to read. There are ways around that by repeatedly rereading it myself, or asking a peer to read it too and ask for their opinion.
Asking a question to Google and getting an AI response can be frustrating if it’s a specific historical question, as it makes it harder to identify the source for that answer … This is very inconvenient … eventually you have to give up, and you’re back to square one. This was the case when I was writing my essay for World History about the Macartney Mission. What AI was saying I hadn’t read in any other secondary interpretations, but that didn’t mean I was going to completely dismiss its claim, unless I couldn’t find its source. … I thought AI’s claim was just one I hadn’t seen yet. The quote from the primary source it gave me, did not exist, so AI had created something out of thin air. – EN
Many students had ethical objections:
I have mixed feelings about the use of AI. While I agree that it can be very useful, I dislike the negative impact it has on the environment from its massive energy consumption and water usage, … I feel that people are becoming heavily reliant on it and less intelligent as they are not thinking for themselves. – IB
AI demand growth, source Hannah Ritchie, graph: https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/ai-energy-demand
I believe that AI can be helpful in a lot of research based jobs, but I dislike when it is used for purposes that are not necessary, because of AI’s destructive nature to the planet and also how it is replacing a lot of jobs. – SC
I don’t use AI … due to its detrimental effect on the environment and also my ability to think for myself, I believe that generative AI is a reflection of how far we have fallen as a society, .. it can polish writings and make things quicker, however I do not feel as if this is worth the damage that it does to the environment and people’s abilities to critically think for themselves … generated essays read as robotic … and it has a tendency to get references and ideas wrong sometimes, so it may be quicker and easier but less authentic and more inaccurate – HM
Whilst generative AI can be useful in some areas like furthering technological discoveries and helping treat life threatening illnesses much quicker than before, … personally I don’t agree with a lot of how it is used in everyday society. I think how it is used in creative roles such as art is detrimental to the people who actually create it in the first place – ST
I believe that generative AI does have real world potential. It can be used as a helping tool for things like coding or, in the case of academia, developing pieces of writing. … However these positive attributes, … are outweighed by my concerns over this technology. We are seeing how people are manipulating this technology to further their own ends, benefiting from its speed and convenience with little government regulation. It also poses a real challenge to the scholarly and academic world …
AI should absolutely not be used in actually writing and producing pieces of work, and should be strictly be used as a helpful tool, as AI generated work is not just disvaluing the skill and academic ambition of the person who did it, but also to their other classmates who may have worked very hard on their own essay, only for it to be marked lower by one not made by an actual person. – PS
Some students find AI beneficial for different tasks:
Personally, I sometimes use AI to create flash cards and revision games in order to help memorise parts of the course and remember the readings.
Ultimately, AI is predominantly just used as a tool to shorten time-consuming tasks and help aid with understanding topics or themes. – KS
I believe the use of generative AI such as ChatGPT and Deepseek in university is mostly not acceptable. … AI … will not help you improve your essays in the future … However, AI … helped me give themes and ideas for a question I was struggling on which I backed up with my own words with research on that theme as evidence. …
Overall, though using generative AI will limit your creativity and copying and pasting chunks in your own work is unacceptable, using it for ideas for which you can back up with your own research and words is very helpful. – RS
I don’t understand why someone would use AI whilst getting a degree at university … the whole point of getting a history degree is to explore your own opinions and ideas … I however do use a spell and grammar checker, … which can be included in using an AI software. So whilst I am against using generative AI, and the plagiarism side of AI, it can become useful to perfect an already finished assignment by correcting mistakes. – RS
My personal thoughts on AI lean towards the positives … rather than the negatives since it can be used as a very useful tool when researching and writing … I strongly emphasise that it is a tool that helps to guide you and help you rather than something you can use to take shortcuts and does your work for you. … it can help you research a topic better by providing you with many different sources and extra information about the subject you are researching. …. AI can help to guide you while structuring and writing your assignment, by creating a detailed structure that you can integrate with yours and follow to make the essay easier to follow and more well-structured. … if AI is used correctly as a tool, it can still allow a person to write in their own style … while still using the feedback and expanded research and structural guide that the AI provided. – JP
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