Even an AI thinks using AI to write your homework is a bad idea

A robot reading a book in a library.
(Image credit: PhonlamaiPhoto)

Kids on Reddit have been telling tales of using OpenAI's Playground to get straight A grades in their homework. It's no secret, but when someone asked the same AI its thoughts on how it was used in this schoolyard cheating scheme, it actually made some pretty good arguments against its own use.

This tweet from MIT's Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), shows OpenAI's answer to the following prompt: "Explain the moral and social issues with using AI to do your homework." 

Spoiler: it's one of resounding negativity.

"They may not be learning the material as well as they could be," the AI writes. "This could lead to problems down the road when they are expected to know the material for exams or real-world applications.

"Additionally, using AI to do homework could lead to cheating." 

No sh*t. Unless you've been assigned a project specifically about using AI for school, it's definitely cheating. Maybe not if you're only using it to help generate ideas, rather than writing entire essays.

I did find a couple of references to using AI for homework across Reddit, along with a few questions about how helpful it might be from prospective cheaters, but one Reddit post sticks out as the post MIT was potentially referencing. 

Urdadgirl69's post, headlined "Artificial Intelligence allows me to get straight A's," talks about using the tool to write essays, answer questions about movies and books for school projects, and even making "$100 profit by 'doing' homework for other classmates," they say. "Now I am looked at as a genius."

OpenAI's Playground tool is an AI training platform that allows users to create and train AI models. It's often used by researchers and developers to experiment with new AI models and applications. Now the kids have cottoned on, they're using it to turn a profit among classmates it seems.

It's a diamond hustle for sure, but as the AI explains "It could create an unfair advantage over other students who are doing their homework on their own." Imagine half the kids in class suddenly shifting from Ds to As in a single week. A bit sus if you ask me, and you'd hope the teacher would realise something was up.

Here's what the Playground text-davinci-002 model AI gave us, as part of a request for an article about kids using AI to do their homework:

"The implications of using AI to do your homework are far-reaching. For one, it could lead to a future where AI is used to do all kinds of things that humans currently do, including things like homework.

Your next machine

(Image credit: Future)

Best gaming PC: The top pre-built machines from the pros
Best gaming laptop: Perfect notebooks for mobile gaming

"This could lead to a future where humans are no longer needed to do things like homework, and instead AI does it all. This could have a major impact on society, as it would likely lead to large-scale unemployment and a decrease in the quality of life for many people. It would also have a major impact on education, as it would likely lead to a decrease in the need for human teachers."

Then it took a surprisingly positive turn, and it wasn't as doom and gloom as when MIT asked it a similar question.

"It could free up a lot of time for people who currently spend a lot of time doing homework. It could also lead to better grades for people who use AI to help with their homework."

Although I'm sure teachers will have something to say about it, the AI isn't wrong. Still, it's imperative for us to have these conversations right now as there's a very real fear arising about the idea that humans could end up supplanted by AI. Artificial intelligence has already been giving people unfair advantages in art competitions, and the moral implications are far reaching. 

But that's a discussion for another time.

Katie Wickens
Hardware Writer

Screw sports, Katie would rather watch Intel, AMD and Nvidia go at it. Having been obsessed with computers and graphics for three long decades, she took Game Art and Design up to Masters level at uni, and has been rambling about games, tech and science—rather sarcastically—for four years since. She can be found admiring technological advancements, scrambling for scintillating Raspberry Pi projects, preaching cybersecurity awareness, sighing over semiconductors, and gawping at the latest GPU upgrades. Right now she's waiting patiently for her chance to upload her consciousness into the cloud.

Read more
The OpenAI logo is being displayed on a smartphone with an AI brain visible in the background, in this photo illustration taken in Brussels, Belgium, on January 2, 2024. (Photo illustration by Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
OpenAI is working on a new AI model Sam Altman says is ‘good at creative writing’ but to me it reads like a 15-year-old's journal
Closeup of the new Copilot key coming to Windows 11 PC keyboards
Microsoft co-authored paper suggests the regular use of gen-AI can leave users with a 'diminished skill for independent problem-solving' and at least one AI model seems to agree
SUQIAN, CHINA - JANUARY 27, 2025 - An illustration photo shows the logo of DeepSeek and ChatGPT in Suqian, Jiangsu province, China, January 27, 2025. (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The brass balls on these guys: OpenAI complains that DeepSeek has been using its data, you know, the copyrighted data it's been scraping from everywhere
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 06: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during the OpenAI DevDay event on November 06, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Altman delivered the keynote address at the first-ever Open AI DevDay conference.(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
In a mere decade 'everyone on Earth will be capable of accomplishing more than the most impactful person can today' says OpenAI boss Sam Altman
OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022.
If you don't let us scrape copyrighted content, we will lose out to China says OpenAI as it tries to influence US government
PC building
ChatGPT vs DeepSeek: which AI can build me a better gaming PC?
Latest in AI
Otter AI Meeting Agent
As if your work meetings weren't already fun enough, now Otter has a new all-hearing AI agent that remembers everything anyone has said and can join in the discussion
Image for
'No real human would go four links deep into a maze of AI-generated nonsense': Cloudflare's AI Labyrinth uses decoy pages to trap web-crawling bots and feed them slop 'as a defensive weapon'
CHINA - 2025/02/11: In this photo illustration, a Roblox logo is seen displayed on the screen of a smartphone. (Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
'Humans still surpass machines': Roblox has been using a machine learning voice chat moderation system for a year, but in some cases you just can't beat real people
OpenAI logo displayed on a phone screen and ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on December 5, 2022.
ChatGPT faces legal complaint after a user inputted their own name and found it accused them of made-up crimes
Public Eye trailer still - dead-eyed police officer sitting for an interview
I'm creeped out by this trailer for a generative AI game about people using an AI-powered app to solve violent crimes in the year 2028 that somehow isn't a cautionary tale
Closeup of the new Copilot key coming to Windows 11 PC keyboards
Microsoft co-authored paper suggests the regular use of gen-AI can leave users with a 'diminished skill for independent problem-solving' and at least one AI model seems to agree
Latest in News
A mech awakens.
Mecha Break developer is considering unlocking all mechs following open beta feedback
Lara Croft Unified Art
Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics lays off 17 employees 'to better align our current business needs and the studio's future success'
A long bendy arm stealing money from people in a subway car
'You're a very long arm. You steal things. It's a comedy game,' explains developer of comedy game where you steal things with a very long arm
The heroes are attacked by monsters
Pillars of Eternity is getting turn-based combat to mark its 10th anniversary, and that means PC Gamer editors will soon be arguing about combat mechanics again
Image of Ronaldo from Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves trailer
It doesn't really make sense that soccer star Ronaldo is now a Fatal Fury character, but if you follow the money you can see how it happened
Junah beginning a battle in Metaphor: ReFantazio.
Today's RPG fans are 'very sensitive to feeling like they wasted time' when they die, says Metaphor: ReFantazio battle planner—but Atlus still made combat hard anyway