A lot of people treat AI like a magic lamp.
You type a question.
It gives you the answer.
Tapos na.
No need for high school.
No need for college.
No need for mentors, books, or real experience.
Sounds convenient, right?
Except it’s a lie.
The Workshop Surprise
I was facilitating a session with a group of professionals—bright, engaged, AI-curious.
I asked them all the same question and had them feed it to ChatGPT.
They all got different answers.
Not wildly different. But different enough to cause confusion.
Same question. Same tool. Different outputs.
That moment caught them off guard.
One participant asked, “So which one is the right answer?”
Another whispered, “Ay, AI lang pala nag-iimbento minsan.”
But the truth is:
AI didn’t invent anything.
It just reflected them.
Their phrasing. Their assumptions. Their silence.
It wasn’t a genie.
It was a mirror.
Most Students Think AI is the Answer
And I get it.
It feels like you’ve discovered a shortcut.
Type your assignment. Paste the answer. Submit. Done.
But here’s what I always say:
Having AI doesn’t mean you’re learning.
Just like owning an encyclopedia doesn’t make you wise.
In the 90s, we had encyclopedia sets in glass cabinets.
We thought having them made us smart.
But those books didn’t change anything…
Unless you opened them. Studied them. Reflected.
Same goes with AI.
Copy-pasting without thinking is not learning.
It’s just digital noise.
The Student Who Outsmarted Herself
A college freshman showed me her report on Filipino values. It looked perfect. Too perfect.
“Did you write this?” I asked.
“Well… I asked ChatGPT,” she said proudly.
“So what part is yours?”
She paused.
Then looked away.
She had no idea what was written in her own paper.
She couldn’t even explain one section in her own words.
That’s the danger:
AI gave her a beautiful draft…
but it also robbed her of the learning.
Not because AI was wrong.
But because she didn’t know how to ask or what to do with the answer.
Metaphor: AI is Like a Car
It can take you faster than ever.
But only if you know where you’re going.
And only if you know how to drive.
If not, it’ll crash.
Or worse—it’ll take you in circles, and you’ll think you’ve made progress when you haven’t even moved.
If You Don’t Know How to Learn, AI Is Useless
AI doesn’t replace your brain.
It rewards it.
It doesn’t remove the need to study.
It speeds up reflection, experimentation, and growth—but only after you’ve built your own thinking muscles.
That’s the real shift:
AI is not your teacher.
You are still the student.
You still need curiosity.
You still need judgment.
You still need struggle.
Because without those?
All you’re doing is typing words into a tool you don’t understand.
So What Do We Do Instead?
Start with this:
- Learn how to ask better questions.
- Use AI to draft, but take time to review and reflect.
- Compare answers. Interrogate them. Cross-check ideas.
- And always—make the final version your own.
You can use AI to accelerate your journey.
But you still need to walk the path.
Be the Driver, Not the Passenger
Students who rely on AI to do all the thinking will look like they’re moving forward.
But eventually, they’ll be asked to explain, decide, create, lead.
And they’ll freeze.
Because they were never the driver.
If you want to use AI well,
you don’t just need to type better prompts—
you need to become a better thinker.
The goal isn’t to be an AI expert.
The goal is to be a human expert who uses AI to multiply, not replace, your ability.
Start with One Shift.
And never stop learning.
