Public Issues Board Hosts Student Debate on AI in Education
By Lucas Xia ‘28
On September 29, the Public Issues Board (PIB) hosted its AI in Education debate in the Farokhzad Math Center as the club’s first event of the year. The discussion began with artificial intelligence’s possible uses in daily life, then turned to independent thinking, assignment design, and academic integrity. PIB co-heads Darby Yang ’27 and Madeleine Wu ’28 opened the event by asking the crowd whether they would trust AI to summarize daily news, manage schedules, or advise them on major decisions like college. Participant approval of AI involvement in these tasks decreased in the given order.
In an interview, Yang said the topic arose from a conversation with PIB co-head Adam Amin ’27 about AI use in the college admissions process and differing university policies. She wanted to give students a platform to share perspectives with the school administration. “I think that we have a lot of very talented and knowledgeable students, and there’s not always a platform to showcase that,” she said.
Panelists Isaac Wu ’28 and Amin, who argued for AI, and Vivienne Mockenhaupt ’27 and Harris Felix ’27, who argued against it, then addressed what role the technology should play in education.Isaac Wu argued that students should be taught to use AI “wherever it can help students learn,” including take-home assignments. Amin agreed that teachers can no longer discern how a student completed work outside of class and advocated designing assignments that require more original thinking and relying on in-class assignments on platforms like Digiexam when they need to evaluate a particular skill. “The working process is still sort of a black box if the assignment’s being taken home,” Amin said.
Mockenhaupt questioned whether access to AI is a reason students should use it in schoolwork. She, alongside Felix, strongly supported teaching students how to harness the technology, especially in Computer Science classes, but doing so gradually. A central argument of the against side was, in Mockenhaupt’s words, that “you have to teach people how to think on their own.” Felix compared AI to calculators, which schools often allow students to use only after they learn foundational math skills. In writing, Felix added, the purpose of an assignment includes “the struggle you have along the way.”
Amin pushed back on the idea that AI removes students from the productive struggle. He talks of AI as a thinking partner, as “something that challenges you, maybe pushes you to think even deeper.” As an example, he described asking AI how judges would react to his Original Oratory performances for his Speech & Debate tournaments. Mockenhaupt returned that, in many cases like this, “AI is just taking the place of a human who could do the same thing.”
Isaac Wu acknowledged the risk of treating AI as a “truth machine.” “By default, AI will take away critical thinking,” Wu said. Still, he also alluded to his partner’s point about using AI as a thinking partner, arguing that students could use it to find counterarguments and question their own work. Later, Mockenhaupt pushed back on the emphasis on human thinking’s ability to produce ideas that AI couldn’t, noting that the caliber of high-school-level work was not about innovation and complete originality, and that others having reached similar conclusions is expected.
When the discussion opened to questions from the audience, US Principal Mrs. Rachel Stone asked panelists how teachers could respond more consistently to AI-related academic issues. Amin suggested leaning towards “creative and curious” assignments, while Felix encouraged more peer-to-peer feedback, saying, “We should talk to each other more.”
In a post-discussion interview, Isaac Wu expanded on using AI as a tutor for his Multivariable Calculus class. He said it helped him work through proofs that were “quite complex” and supplied him with additional practice problems to reinforce his understanding. “But of course, the big thing is that AI asks me questions, so I’m still thinking,” he said.
Yang said student feedback had highlighted the interactive and engaging format PIB wishes to continue experimenting with. She also stated the nuanced nature of these debates: many panelists who lean toward AI have also identified situations where AI may not be as useful. The discussion also reached faculty meetings. Mrs. Stone told Madeleine Wu that the event was raised at one such meeting to share “some of the main takeaways of the talk.”
Source: Madeleine Wu ’28