While I was a student of Aerospace Engineering, I was doing a project under Prof Rao. I was given a research paper on simulating tsunami waves. The paper was quite complicated, involving a lot of higher mathematics. I was able to comprehend it with the help of Google Search. I felt somewhat proud of my achievement and met Prof Rao to explain my understanding. I was expecting positive feedback. But instead, Prof Rao criticized my approach. His point of view was that Google was a shortcut. I was supposed to instead gradually learn the required mathematics on my own. This process of learning the required mathematics would have been longer. But the goal was never to code the simulation. The goal was learning. The struggle to learn was part of the process. Only by building a strong foundation could I move to the next level of formulating similar solutions on my own.
Something similar is happening with the advent of GenAI. It is a very powerful tool. One can use it to write blogs, essays, and code. But when we rely too heavily on tools, we fail to learn the foundational concepts well.
Learning a concept involves many steps. We start by learning from a lecture or a book. Sometimes we have to refer to additional resources if the concept is tough. Understanding the concept is the first step. But this is just the beginning. Once we understand the concept, we need to ensure our understanding is correct. This can be evaluated against a set of questions. Some knowledge requires application. For that, we need to practice with many problems to become well-versed. Some knowledge requires retention. For that, we need periodic recollection and revision. Overall, learning a concept requires effort. When we struggle with difficult problems, our understanding and retention improve. Once we solve many problems, write a lot of essays, or answer a lot of question sets, we discover patterns. The repetition helps build retention and solidify our learning.
If we take any shortcut, then that impacts our overall learning. The shortcut may not only involve using AI tools. We may take a shortcut by copying an assignment instead of solving it. We may take a shortcut by skipping a lecture video or quiz.
As I have explained above, if we use GenAI tools to avoid the struggle, then we learn less effectively. But we can use the same GenAI tools to enhance our understanding and learning. GenAI can analyze our answers to identify our weak areas. GenAI can create questions for us to practice. GenAI can help us understand something better by simplifying concepts. At the end of the day, GenAI is a tool. Everything depends on how we use that tool.