In this post I would like to delve into my experience with using AI, and how this new technology can be leveraged or misused.
The Good and bad of AI
The use of AI is becoming ubiquitous with students, professionals and everyday people in their work. The problem is that this technology is very easily misused, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of AI can help people leverage this technology to reinforce their work, and learning, without interfering with it.
AI similar to a tutor
As a student it can be easy to become bogged down when stuck on a problem. Traditionally this would be overcome by either asking a professor, or hiring a tutor in order to quickly learn a concept. One issue with this traditional approach is that professors do not have enough time to tutor each student and hiring a tutor can be expensive. An effective use of AI is to use it almost like a tutor, doing so can help get past the feeling of being stuck, which can make learning easier and faster. Even if the AI spits out an incorrect answer, encapsulating the idea into writing can sometimes be enough.
Drilling and example problems – active recall
Another good use of AI is drilling for tests. Using AI to create sample questions, to learn, and memorize concepts and methods to solve problems.
Search engines are basically useless
I have talked to many people who have noticed a pattern with modern web search… that it sucks. I personally agree that modern search engines are at best, kind of useful and at worst useless. What I mean by this, is that it is impossible to find real information by real people on the internet anymore. All of the top web results are “Top 10 blah blah blah of 2025”, reddit posts that never answer the question asked, or obscure technical questions from a decade ago that never reach an answer. Also a lot of the top search results are copied and pasted slop that has no real information it is just fluff. The goal of a website is no longer to document and distribute information that a person may find interesting or have expertise in, the goal now is to maximize time spent on their website in order to increase ad revenue, which equates most of the time to wasting the users time.
GenAI as a search engine
To avoid wasting time trying to search the internet for something specific, GenAI can aggregate information from the internet that is relevant to the users query. This may be a more efficient way to gather information from websites, to only receive relevant information, rather than fluff.
The old fashioned way is the best way to access real information
Probably the best alternative to both searching the web and using AI, is to just read the text book. This is the slower but reliable route, reading the text book is less frustrating and in the long term is likely a better resource than both the internet and AI.
Offloading too much to AI
One danger of using AI is that the user will offload too much thinking to the AI. Firstly doing so robs the user of any learning, and also can alter the way we critically think about a problem, by turning off the critical thinking part of the brain. For example, consider the Einstellung effect, when a person sees the answer to a problem, they become unable to think critically to come up with their own solution. This effect is quite common if AI is misused.
AI causes more confusion and distracts from the real solution
One issue with AI is that it is marketed as an all purpose tool that is capable to help with any subject. This is not true, and the AI will confidently give false information, which can lead to confusion and frustration. I would say the best thing to do is to lower ones expectations of AI and use it sparingly.
Conclusion:
GenAI can either be leveraged to aid in learning, or impede it. Learning how AI works and its limitations can give users a better perspective on what AI is good for and what it is not. The current state of AI is no where near equal to the capability of the human brain, for the best outcomes people should not lean on artificial intelligence but use it as a tool, and embrace on our own Human Intellegence.
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