Ethan Mollick
@emollick
The research team (including @hamsabastani who is on X) found that letting students just use AI resulted in them using it to accidentally shortcut learning But both that study and a separate RCT found that AIs prompted to act as a tutor improved learning https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6423358
Anand Sanwal
@asanwal
· Mar 28
Wharton researchers gave nearly 1,000 high school math students access to ChatGPT during practice problems Result: chatGPT is the perfect trap. Look at the red bars. Students with ChatGPT crushed their practice sessions. The basic ChatGPT group solved more problems and those on the "tutor" version did even more. Now look at the gray bars. That's the exam. No AI allowed. The ChatGPT group scored 17% worse than kids who practiced with zero technology. And the fancy tutor version? No better than working alone. The researchers called AI a "crutch." When they analyzed what students actually typed into ChatGPT, most of them just wrote - “What’s the answer?” The kicker: students who used ChatGPT believed it hadn't hurt their learning. They were confidently wrong. This is the AI trap in education. Outsourcing your thinking. Of course, lots of half-baked AI literacy curricula being rolled out in schools now Let’s of course ignore that basic literacy (the ability to read) is possible for <50% of 8th graders Source: Bastani et al. (2025), "Generative AI Can Harm Learning," PNAS
