AI has become an increasingly major part of education at all levels. Businesses like Google and ChatGPT offer accessible AI models that many students of all majors can use to help with their assignments. While its correctness could be debatable, it is undoubtedly the go-to tool for students in a crunch or struggling with academics. In software, since code is generally very standardized, AI is a very effective tool in creating code snippets. The downside of this effectiveness is it questions the essentialness of software engineers in the workforce.
1 & 2: For most WODs I did not use AI because of the video guide provided. In the case I really got stuck, I would just watch the video guide and see the process up to that point.
3: For In class WODS, I was more prone to using AI since there was no video guide. However the instructions in most of the WODs were enough to guide me on the right path. I would say most of my AI use was for syntax, like remembering how to img tags or what I should be putting in class, if I was using React or Bootstrap.
4: Essays I did not use AI since most of them were reflections. I could come up with it myself, and I am okay with writing.
5: For the final project I did use AI to help with understanding code that my teammates wrote, and also understanding more about how are app was operating with the database and how it used other web features/APIs I wasnt familiar with.
6: Certain concepts like functional programming I used a bit of AI to try and understand how the functions work and the core idea behind functional programming since I couldn’t really wrap my head around it. However, I relied more on human-made tutorials like youtube videos and articles to supplement my knowledge more than AI.
7 & 8: I didn’t ask or answer questions
10: As mentioned in 5, I would use it to try and explain what some of the code of my peers did. I would submit the snippet and have it review it.
11: Sometimes I would use it to reorganize/cleanup code. In the sense that I would submit my code to it and ask if this looks okay. I would also sometimes use it to try and see how my code should connect with another’s code. Like on the final project I might ask how can I use their code to do something that I need to do, or how to jointly implement it I suppose.
12: I didn’t use it to document code since it seemed to simple so I would do it myself.
13: If I ran into an error I couldn’t figure out, I would give it to ChatGPT to analyze to figure it out. Or sometimes if my solution made more issues I would try to see if ChatGPT could come up with a better solution or find a good solution to my band-aid fix.
I think AI does have good potential to be used for learning. I think when you really try to solve a problem, and you ask AI for a solution, it gives you insight to where you went wrong and lets you move along faster than you would say waiting for class the next week or for a TA to grade an assignment. However, just using it to solve difficult problems right off the bat probably means you wont really understand what you are doing and will hamper your learning.
I think AI can be effective at providing different perspectives for engineers, and potentially giving insight they may have missed. It could be used in many stages of development like testing and developing to help create more well-rounded applications.
Sometimes AI just simply is not right. It doesn’t have the data to correctly answer your problem or at least understand the true scope of it. Thus, sometimes you just gotta go it on your own or use more traditional means. That said, I think it can be really effective in teaching software since it can provide instant feedback and also provide tips that you might not necessarily learn about or realize till later. Especially because lots of coding involves various levels of documentation that you may need to know.
I think on one hand AI can lead to less student engagement since it is a tool that can be used to sub for your own actual work and thinking. However, I also think it can expedite the learning of very good students who are trying to get ahead. Its a double-edged sword really. Overall I think it also helps people deal more with the code itself rather then be bogged down having to look through documentation.
I think like what others have said in the media, AI will completely change the landscape of software engineering. It really does have the potential to replace lower-level engineers, but its also important to remember that we need people to be trained and to handle software so in a weird way lower-level engineers are still very important to the field. It will be interesting to see how companies and schools balance this need.
I think AI should be thoughtfully implemented in most ICS courses, since it really is one of those things that people are going to use no matter what. Thus its important to think about how students and teachers can resonsibly use AI to still provide a quality education. Overall though, I think that at the end of the day it is now moreso the students responsibilty to learn as much as possible, and realize that it might get them through classes, but not interviews.