It's the tragedy of the commons, but students using AI are only ruining their educational experience.<p>The age of computers has brought easy word processing and portable research tools that give you incredible freedom when writing papers or doing homework. No need to purchase book after book or hang out in the library all day if you're doing research.<p>Now with AI making automated plagiarism trivial, the system will need to change. I believe this can very well be the start of the return of pen and paper and non-digital essays under the watchful eyes of teachers.<p>Nobody wants such changes to happen, neither the educational staff nor the students, but I think it's inevitable.<p>AI is like calculators. They're an amazing tool that's essential for certain tasks, like actually applying higher algebra, but they're not a replacement of the basic skills most course and subjects are trying to teach.<p>Allowing the use of generative AI on essays is like giving primary school kids calculators to teach them arithmetic: the tool takes the place of the skills you're being taught. You can use all the spell and gammer checking AI you want on an essay (unless you're doing an English essay specifically to test your grammatical skills, of course) but don't grab a calculator when you're being taught how to do basic multiplication!