Learn with AI, Live with AI

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini…students nowadays are quite familiar with these names. But how do students learn with AI, and how to apply AI in a reasonable way?

To answer these questions, I interviewed Andres Rivera, a senior student from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), majoring in psychological field. He is going on an exchange semester at the Faculty of Business Administration at the LMU Munich.

Q: Why did you choose to study business administration at the LMU, instead of your major, psychology?

A: It’s interesting that psychology is not only based on clinical area. There are other branches like organizational psychology, which is related to the management area. When I was researching the academic alignment between the LMU and my home university, I realized that the management is related to what I would be studying if I were in Mexico.

Q: Do you have a lot of course assignments at LMU?

A: I should have five subjects. But since I really wanted to do this exchange and started my career, I decided to take some classes in advance. Now, I only have four subjects. So, there are not so many assignments. But taking these classes in English is really challenging for me.

Q: Have your professors set any requirements about AI-use in your assignments?

A: At least right now, no. But on one course professors said that I cannot give answers based on AI, otherwise they will reject the registration of this course.

Q: Are there some rules on AI- use at your home university?

A: Yes. Nowadays people are using AI for everything. So, there are several restrictions of AI in Mexico to encourage students to put effort into their studies, otherwise they would just give AI a prompt. They simply copy the whole AI generated text without changing a comma. That’s why we have those restrictions and I think that’s necessary because people are truly abusing AI.

Take myself for example, I only use it for some subjects that I don’t understand, such as designing and research project. I let AI do the designing for me, but after that, I do everything by myself.

Q: Personally, can you remember when did you start to use AI?

A: I remember the first time I heard about ChatGPT. It was three years ago, when I still didn’t want to use it because I saw how people were getting addicted and relying too much on it.

But about a year and a half ago, when I started to having research courses, I started to use AI because there were many things I didn’t understand and needed someone to help me. Until today I keep using it.

Q: So, you have been an AI-user for years, how often do you learn with AI?

A: I don’t use AI on a regular basis. But I still turn to AI to solve my problems in study. For instance, before I applied to the LMU, I had to do the TOEFL exam to prove that I have enough English knowledge. All my practice for TOEFL were based on AI.

However, I try to use it as less as possible. I prefer to read by myself and have my own conclusions.

Q: Are there some processes in your learning which you would never let AI do for you?

A: Whenever I read a paper. I always try to read it completely by myself or ask for a summary only after reading it. It’s bad that many people only get information from AI, because key features will be missed, especially during the exams.

Q: Has AI made some differences in your study life?

A: AI has definitely made study easier and let me feel more relieved. If I give AI some resources, it can make a podcast about it. For me, this function is really useful because I always exercise with AI podcast or quizzes for my English courses.

Another aspect in which AI has changed my study is translation. You can copy and paste the translation based on AI and it will give you the context. When you’re reading, you can look up the word and won’t waste time opening dictionaries as people did in the past.

Q: Are there any disadvantages of learning with AI?

A: It’ll be scary to rely too much on it. From the psychological perspective, our brain isn’t made to make a lot of efforts. I’m afraid to become lazy. I have to keep doing my own things.

Q: Apart from learning, what else do you use AI for?

A: Since this is my first time to come to Europe, I used AI to plan my trip. It was convenient but still made mistakes. On my first day in a new city, AI suggested just walking around and relaxing. But I wanted take advantage of my time. That’s why I believe that apart from learning, we still need to be rational with AI. We should by ourselves select AI’s suggestions.

Q: What kind of functions would you like AI to develop in the future?

A: I wouldn’t like AI to have more power than it already has. AI has been doing and misused so much. I hope it doesn’t keep developing itself, otherwise maybe one day we will end up like The Terminator. I know this sounds like crazy, but that’s how I feel right now.