Has AI Broken Education—or Did We Break It First?

Argumentative Essay Prompt: AI, Education, and the Future of Human Thinking (1,700 words)

Artificial intelligence has entered classrooms, study sessions, and homework routines with overwhelming speed. Some commentators argue that this shift is not just disruptive but disastrous. Ashanty Rosario, a high school student, warns in “I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education” that AI encourages passivity, de-skills students, and replaces authentic learning with the illusion of competence. Lila Shroff, in “The AI Takeover of Education Is Just Getting Started,” argues that teachers and institutions are unprepared, leaving students to navigate a digital transformation with no guardrails. Damon Beres claims in “AI Has Broken High School and College” that classrooms are devolving into soulless content factories in which students outsource both thought and identity. These writers paint a bleak picture: AI is not just a tool—it is a force accelerating the decay of intellectual life.

Other commentators take a different approach. Ian Bogost’s “College Students Have Already Changed Forever” argues that the real transformation happened long before AI—students have already become transactional, disengaged, and alienated, and AI simply exposes a preexisting wound. Meanwhile, Tyler Austin Harper offers two counterpoints: in “The Question All Colleges Should Ask Themselves About AI,” he insists that institutions must rethink how assignments function in the age of automation; and in “ChatGPT Doesn’t Have to Ruin College,” he suggests that AI could amplify human learning if courses are redesigned to reward original thinking, personal insight, and intellectual ambition rather than formulaic output.

In a 1,700-word argumentative essay, defend, refute, or complicate the claim that AI is fundamentally damaging education. Your essay must:

• Take a clear position on whether AI erodes learning, enhances it, or transforms it in ways that require new pedagogical strategies.
• Analyze how Rosario, Shroff, and Beres frame the dangers of AI for intellectual development, motivation, and classroom culture.
• Compare their views with Bogost and Harper, who argue that education itself—not AI—is the root of the crisis, or that educators must adapt rather than resist.
• Include a counterargument–rebuttal section that addresses the strongest argument you disagree with.
• Use at least four credible sources in MLA format, including at least three of the essays listed above.

Your goal is not to summarize the articles but to evaluate what they reveal about the future of learning: Is AI the villain, the scapegoat, or a tool we have not yet learned to use wisely?