The Results of Middle and High School Students Using AI Are Extremely Ominous

Key Points:

• A study of nearly 27,000 Chinese students aged 12-18 found that those using AI tools like DeepSeek and ByteDance’s Doubao completed homework 30% faster and scored 18% higher on assignments compared to non-users.
• Despite better homework performance, AI-using students scored 20% lower on monthly exams, indicating reliance on AI may hinder actual learning and exam preparation.
• Similar trends were observed by a Brown University professor, whose students scored exceptionally high on AI-assisted take-home exams but performed poorly on in-person finals, with many top performers skipping the final altogether.
• Research from MIT and other institutions suggests AI use lowers brain activity related to learning, impairs critical thinking, and is linked to memory loss, raising concerns about long-term cognitive effects.
• The study highlights significant learning losses especially in social sciences, STEM, and language courses, and contributes to worries about AI-driven grade inflation, with a 30% increase in A grades in AI-vulnerable college courses since ChatGPT's release.