I've been observing how students use AI tools recently, and something feels different - not just *what* they learn, but *how* they get there.
Earlier, if you didn't understand something, the process usually looked like:
* searching across multiple sources
* reading different explanations
* trying things out
* getting stuck
* eventually figuring it out
Now it often looks like:
* ask AI
* get an answer
* move on
The middle part - the struggle, the exploration - seems to be shrinking.
At the same time, I've also seen students say this saves time and reduces unnecessary frustration, which makes sense.
So I'm trying to understand this better.
If you're a student:
* Do you still go through that "figuring things out" process, or do you mostly rely on direct answers now?
* Do you feel like skipping that process affects your understanding later, or not really?
If you've experienced both (before and after AI), even better - what feels different?
Not trying to judge - just trying to understand what's actually changing.
**My Qualifications:**
I work closely with students in a teaching/training environment in India and regularly observe how they approach assignments, coding problems, and exam preparation.
i mean ive been very reliant on AI ever since I started using it, tbh I think I've gotten very smart because of it, and I feel like it doesn't matter if u go through a lot os sources or ask Ai directly because the outcome is the same. AI has just made the process much more easier and also made information and knowledge very convenient as you dont have to dig into rabbit holes to find out about something. EARLIER people who went down these rabbit holes and did research on subjects or topics used to feel very smart and tbh there's a lot of complex because of that because people like that seemed very knowledgeable to other students and smart making other students feel dumb. AFTER AI I think a lot of these students who felt dumb or used to think of these other students as kind of smarter ( i was one of them the dumb one) started doing better maybe even better then these smart students ( i feel the same) because it was never INCOMPETENCE, it was just lack of interest and ROI not being that much because of such a complex process of gaining knowledge as not everybody is that much interested.
At the same time I also think that someone who uses AI may or may not possess surface level knowledge and the other type may be a lot more knowledgeable as the other process develops critical thinking(not in my case though).
At the end of the day I think it's all just a game of pretending of how much knowledge one possesses. I myself have never been that knowledgeable or intellectual and gathered knowledge from different sources(watching reels kind of sources) but still never felt outperformed as I am a very good communicator and storyteller. There's this thing Nikhil Kamath said and I agree very much "PEOPLE NEVER DISAGREE WITH IDEAS THEY DISAGREE WITH THE PERSON" .
Anyways the crux is it doesn't matter much because more or less the outcome is the same + you should know how to not appear dumb + be a good storyteller/communicator.
please be critical about my grammar and let me know if there were mistakes in the read or if it was a hard read;)
What I've noticed is they are using AI to summarise books and articles, sometimes even video. And losing all sense of detail, nuanced and context. Even Phd and masters students. So yes to your question.
r/teachers can be really insightful once you wade through all the despair lol
I come from an computer science engineering background. I was also initially skeptical that today's students simply get the answers via AI rather than actually acquiring knowledge.
I was then recently chit chatting with a friend's uncle who's a 55-year-old lead staff engineer(almost at a CTO level) at an AI startup who gave me a different perspective. He once felt the same way about the 90s and 00s generations, that Google and Wikipedia was a shortcut compared to his experience of going deep through library books, manual research, and following up with actual professors or people of expertise in that area. I think this is likely just a cycle. True knowledge remains far more valuable than just information. Data lies around us everywhere but to pick it up and make that into knowledge still requires our work.
Bhai necessity hai aaj ke zamane ai
There is a whole lotta competition, we simply don't have time to do traditional research over trivial things