95% of faculty say AI making students dangerously dependent on technology for learning: survey

A new survey from the American Association of Colleges and Universities and Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center found that an overwhelming majority of college faculty are concerned that artificial intelligence is harming students’ critical thinking abilities. 

The survey, which polled 1,057 faculty members, found that 95% believe that AI will make students overly rely on artificial intelligence, and 75% said AI will have a significant impact. 

Ninety percent of faculty said that AI would decrease student’s critical thinking abilities, and 83% said students' use of it would decrease their attention spans. 

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Faculty are also concerned about ethical issues tied to student use of AI.

Seventy-eight percent of faculty said that cheating on their campus has increased since AI’s ready availability, with 57% saying it has increased significantly. 

Seventy-three percent of faculty said they personally have had to handle academic integrity issues due to their students using AI.

According to the survey, students' research capabilities are also suffering. Forty-eight percent of faculty say their students’ research has deteriorated due to AI, while 20% said it has improved. 

Faculty were similarly skeptical about AI’s impact on academic credentials, with 74% saying the use of AI tools will negatively affect the integrity and value of academic degrees, including 36% who believe the value of degrees will worsen significantly.

Just 8% of faculty said they believe AI will affect the value of degrees for the better.

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At the same time, many faculty members said they are concerned students are not prepared to enter a workforce increasingly shaped by AI. 

Sixty-three percent of faculty said their schools’ graduates last spring were not well-prepared or not prepared at all to use AI in the workplace, while only 37% believed the graduating students were very or semi-prepared.

The non-scientific survey was conducted late last year, using a list of college and university faculty members developed by AAC&U and Elon University, across a variety of titles and disciplines.

"These faculty are divided about the use of generative AI itself," Lee Rainie, director of Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center and a co-author of the report, said in a statement. 

"Some are innovating and eager to do more; a notable share are strongly resistant; and many are grappling with how to proceed," Rainie added. "At the same time, there is broad agreement that without clear values, shared norms and serious investment in AI literacy, we risk trading compelling teaching, deep learning, human judgment and students’ intellectual independence for convenience and a perilous, automated future."

Eddie Watson, co-author of the report and vice president for digital innovation at American Association of Colleges and Universities, said the survey points to a need for leadership in the uncharted territories of AI.

"When more than nine in ten faculty warn that generative AI may weaken critical thinking and increase student overreliance, it is clear that higher education is at an inflection point," Watson said. 

He added that the survey’s findings "do not call for abandoning AI, but for intentional leadership – rethinking teaching models, assessment practices, and academic integrity so that human judgment, inquiry, and learning remain central. The challenge before higher education is to act with urgency and purpose so that AI strengthens, rather than undermines, the value of a college degree."