In the age of “smart assignments,” the question is no longer “Did the student write it?” but rather: “Who wrote it?”
Students now spend half an hour crafting the perfect prompt for the machine—and five minutes submitting the work.
The answers are flawless, the language academic, the citations precise… yet no one knows: is this the student’s thought, or merely an electronic echo?
A 2024 Harvard University study found that over 61% of university students relied partially or entirely on AI tools to complete assignments, while 39% of faculty members could not distinguish between human and machine-generated work.
Artificial intelligence now works full-time… while the human mind takes unpaid leave.
Professors correct the model, not the student.
Administrators record grades, not capabilities.
Institutions celebrate excellence—without realizing the essay was produced externally, not internally.
We are not facing “smart cheating”; we are witnessing the birth of a new condition—academic unconsciousness.
A student who delivers without understanding, who earns the grade but has no memory of what he wrote.
He sits for an oral exam… and stumbles before the very content he “submitted.”
The danger is not in ChatGPT itself, but in using it as a substitute for the mind rather than an extension of it.
Tools do not kill thought—but surrendering to them does.
So, dear educators of tomorrow, before grading, ask: Who wrote this?
Ask the student before granting the grade: “Was this your mind—or the machine’s?”
Because the greatest risk is not producing perfect essays… but graduating students who no longer have a voice of their own.
In one class, a teacher asked a student, “What’s your opinion on your essay topic?”
The boy looked puzzled: “My opinion? I don’t understand what you mean!”
The essay had been composed outside his mind—refined, formatted, impressive—but empty of thought or memory.
Gradually, the student becomes a manager of AI accounts, not a maturing thinker.
He knows how to prompt, cite, and format—but not how to form an idea.
He perfects the surface and loses the depth.
A UNESCO 2023 report warned that “students’ uncritical reliance on smart writing tools directly correlates with the erosion of expressive and analytical skills.”
So, are we evaluating how well a student can use smart tools—or how well he can think?
Do we now reward linguistic polish… over genuine thought?
The student today may not cheat—but neither does he think.
He doesn’t forge papers—but he borrows a mind.
And the system plays along: teachers stay silent, institutions applaud, and everyone admires the quick results.
Let AI be a mirror for thought, not its replacement.
Education is not measured by how refined a text appears—but by how much of it was truly written by a thinking human being.
So, education systems of today, celebrate less the polished output—and ask one question only:
Was the student truly present when he wrote… or merely when he clicked “Send”?
