A CNN article says some students at Yale now can't even talk in class without using ChatGPT to coach them

[highplainsdem]

This article

AI is changing the way students talk in class and how teachers test them
https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/04/health/ai-impact-college-student-thinking-wellness

was written by a student who's a junior at Yale and interviewed other students.

From one senior she talked to:

Amanda said she was taken aback. Until that day, she didn’t realize that her peers were using chatbots in class and sharing what it spits out in the classroom. Now she notices the impact that tendency is having on class discussions.

“Everyone now kind of sounds the same,” she said. “I feel like during my freshman year in college, I would sit in seminars where everyone had something different to contribute. Although people would piggyback off each other, they approached from different angles and offered different commentary.”

From another senior:

Jessica, a senior at Yale, told CNN that she uses AI every day for her classes. In an economics seminar in which the professor cold-calls students, “at the beginning of class, you could see every single person putting every single PDF” into a chatbot.

She also uses AI when she has trouble turning her thoughts into words. “I want to comment, and I have this concept, but I don’t know how to formulate the sentence myself,” she said. So she asked a chatbot “to make it sound more cohesive.”

She also admitted she's lazier now, using a chatbot. Her work ethic has dimished since high school.

Another Yale student, a junior, says students are using AI to give them scripts of what to say in class because they feel insecure.

The article also quotes a humanities professor who's a fellow with the rightwing American Enterprise Institute who likes the way students using AI has "raised the floor of class discussion to a generally better level" but worries about how it precludes "original thoughts." He's a nitwit, if he's giving his students approving responses when they echo ChatGPT but still wants original thoughts.

Another professor who's quoted said he's heard of people using AI to decide which candidate to vote for, which he finds scary.

These students have had ChatGPT and similar chatbots available for only three years and four months.

The effect on them has not been good.

[SheltieLover]

1. Jfc.

[PatrickforB]

7. No doubt. This stuff is scary. Talk about dumbing people down! n/t

[SheltieLover]

9. For sure! And many people go for it!

[tinrobot]

2. Yale is like an Olympic training camp for the mind

Yet, these people call an Uber instead of running the mile themselves.

We're going to lose a generation of deep thinkers to this mind-sucking technology.

[PeaceWave]

3. "I want to comment, and I have this concept, but I don't know how to formulate the sentence myself."

Oh boy. And this out of an Eli. I can only imagine what's going on at junior colleges.

[highplainsdem]

5. And those Yale students at least got through high school, or most of the way through it, before AI use

dumbed them down. In a few years we'll have college seniors dumbed down by AI since middle school.

[oldsoldierfadingfast]

4. The old saying...

'If you don't use it, you loose it' applies to the brain too.
I know. as I have lost so much - but at least, I waited until I was old and with life's major responsibilities behind me.

What will happen when these supposedly educated people have to start 'thinking on their feet" with no time to check their smart phones?

[FHRRK1]

10. Wat ar u talkin about!

Teknologie makes everything beter. Look at me, i gradated college well before computers. Spel chek did nothing to impack my speling skils.

[chowder66]

6. Shame on educators allowing this.

[highplainsdem]

8. Most of the teachers I've talked to tried to stop it. School admins were pressured by AI companies, or

dazzled by this very flawed tech.

[NJCher]

11. they'd never get away with this

if I was the professor for the class. I have my ways of eliciting creativity. It's not easy, though. It's very, very hard and time intensive.

In case anyone's interested, here is what I do:

First they read one complex essay.

Then they read another.

Then they have to imagine how Essayist 1 would respond to Essayist 2's question.

I then help them use this input to form a thesis statement.

Can you see how there is no way they could use AI with this technique?

[Intractable]

14. Only because you are there watching them read the essays and create the response.

Without you, they can just feed both essays to the ChatBot and create a prompt like "compare the two files."

The thesis would come from the output.

Prompt the ChatBot with something like "what is the most important idea in the comparison."

[BurnDoubt]

12. I'm reminded of a Star Trek episode...

"You're not of the Body....."

This is just the interegnum before Humans are relegated to the Klepto Mines.
Won't be long....

[calimary]

13. THIS is getting scary.

[BeneteauBum]

15. That's pitiful

Raising a generation who can’t think for themselves….potential MAGA acolytes.

Peace ☮️

[Lemon Lyman]

16. Ugh

This is so stupid. I know work can suck. But if you don't do the work, you don't learn anything. If some machine or app is writing your papers and answering your questions, you're not going to learn or improve.

Pisses me off to see some commercials now using improper grammar ("The Honda CRV Hybrid will help you make less trips to the pump" -- No, it's FEWER). It's like even smart people are dumbing things down b/c dumb people expect to hear it a certain way.

anyways (anyway)
could of/should of (could have/should have)
they're bias (biased)
that's a bunch of dribble (drivel)
she's the worse (worst)

I think a lot of people just do things phonetically. And if you correct someone's grammar, even politely, you're an a*shole. We're regressing. I think in 20 years we'll be communicating by clicks and grunts like cave people.

Idiocracy should win an honorary Oscar every year. It came out in 2005, and it was 99% right about the future.