Abdication vs. Augmentation: An Educator's Choice

When ChatGPT first appeared, my teaching colleagues were polarized. Some forbade AI in assignments, trusting detectors to catch cheaters. Others embraced student AI use as building a future skill. Now, in early 2026, I'm concerned about how little nuance has shaped either position in the world of education.

Those who forbid AI use are doubling down on denuding the classroom of technology. "We've got to focus on domain fundamentals and critical thinking skills. AI use would just destroy our students' ability to think and learn! Pencils! Paper! Real books! That's where true learning happens!" I agree. There is a benefit to developing critical thinking skills independent of AI (see the MIT study). But we have limited classroom time, and the reality is we can't monitor students' AI use outside it.

Then there are the hyper-adopters. "This AI thing is the wave of the future! In the real world, students will be doing all their writing with it! So let students use AI now to produce the best texts they possibly can!" I agree — students need preparation for an AI-enabled future. But the core problem is this: not all AI use is equally beneficial.

AI in education falls into one of two patterns:

ABDICATION: Students simply hand their thinking to AI, submit a general “do this for me” prompt, turn in the output with little revision, and everyone pretends — we pretend to teach, they pretend to learn, and we all pretend the credential means something.

AUGMENTATION: Students do the critical thinking — analyzing, decomposing problems, synthesizing ideas — then lean on AI to test hypotheses, challenge ideas, and handle grunt work like formatting. The thinking stays with the student; AI amplifies the output. The problem with augmentation is that it requires significant redesign of the educational process and, more fundamentally, a shift in our thinking. It also requires us to cast a vision for our students and model by example what this type of work looks like.

In the end, the only people valuable in an AI-empowered world are those who can think critically, decompose problems, and work (usually with AI) to design solutions. The future belongs to augmenters, not abdicators. Who are you teaching your students to be?