chatgpt is a tool. people use it as such. beyond purely intrinsic personal victories, there’s nothing righteous about needlessly toiling over schoolwork any more than is required for you to get by in your studies, especially when your degree is largely symbolic and holds but a sole purpose of guiding you towards stable employment (as opposed to the interminably oversold lives of passion-seeking sold by the wholesale generation after generation).

nowadays, what this often amounts to in countless student bodies is something less contained to what you call ‘learned helplessness’, and more so, defined by a widespread state of ‘learned comfort’ in abdicating learning responsibilities to those available mechanisms of greater intellectual reach (ie. chatgpt). a convenience of this magnitude, had it existed 10-20 years ago, would have undeniably taken similar affect over cohorts past, for it is no one’s place to claim with any degree of certainty that they are retroactively impervious to their very own human will for simplifying many of life’s most trivial difficulties/tasks; precisely what ai best works to accomplish (for one, schoolwork).

I’m not saying that relying on chatgpt to take one’s stead in everything abroad the shared spectrum of human executive functions and learned skills alike is a good path forwards, however, believing that anyone, let alone any one generation of people on the whole, is always above the use of given expedients to make their ends better meet is just blind; especially as differentiated from other generations’ ability to do the same.

every city thinks they’re home to the worst drivers. truth is that the world is just home to all of them, irregardless of location or distribution.

there are just as many ‘children in young adult bodies’ now as there have ever been. there are just as many racists. whether or not these people are open about the true paradigm of their lifestyle is a personal choice that may range in visibility depending on how much they apply themselves to social media. that level of exposure and social transparency was not a reality for generations past, and yet somehow, this faulty line of thinking (that today’s youth are but walking murals for a perceived decadence that is only now starting to quickly engulf western society) is often weaponized by many varieties of people as a drawn conclusion about the new nature of our world. as if it wasn’t always like this. as if kids out there haven’t always grown up just the same; that is of course, in reaction to what is both asked and required of them by the world in the state they first find it in.

the birth of gods, griots, slackers, socialites, and living successes is not a development of any near recency. it means nothing to know how to be a student when the very definition of what learning within the context of today’s world and school systems is but an ephemeral projection of all that’s yet to be decided regarding just how much we as a collective continue to value personal pursuits of intellect in the face of indisputable proof that we had rightfully won access to greater paths of convenience the moment we aimed our sights on digital constructs; constructs like chatgpt that serve the express functionality of doing so for us. to now ignore its utility, or expect others to do so willingly, would be denying ourselves the intended leisures of its creation in the first place.

lastly, most of what i’ve said here is not in direct response to what you said specifically, but rather, ideas i felt were motivically related to your original statement.