Uncoding Writing Skills Decline: A Look on AI in Education

Writing, an invaluable skill for academic excellence, has been facing an alarming decline in years. And now with the rise of AI, it should not come as a surprise when it continues to trickle down. 

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When Have We Lost Our Minds

The New Yorker article by Hua Hsu (2025) states that “according to a recent study from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, human intellect has declined since 2012. An assessment of tens of thousands of adults in nearly thirty countries showed an over-all decade-long drop in test scores for math and for reading comprehension. Andreas Schleicher, the director for education and skills at the O.E.C.D., hypothesized that the way we consume information today—often through short social-media posts—has something to do with the decline in literacy.”

The Humane Act of Writing

Writing is not simply combining words. It is a culling of worthy knowledge to paper. An immortalization of fleeting experiences. An act of pulling wisdom from the realm of thoughts. It involves deliberate engagement of the mind, a sacred practice that makes humans distinct from the rest of the species on the face of the planet. 

But when AI takes over the writing for students, it strips them of these sentient values. It becomes a subtle crutch that takes over their minds, depriving them of essential skills, such as reading comprehension and analytical skills needed for other facets of learning and personal development. 

Education and Lifelong Learning

Education is not merely a life phase, nor is it a sprint from point A to point B. It is an intricate, more nuanced approach to navigating the complexities of life even outside the corners of the classroom. It is about preparing the learners to be more than ready for the real world. When students heavily rely on AI, how will they know how to think for themselves when they have to do real tasks that require human touch and authentic intelligence? Who knows, AI may not always be there to solve more complex problems. 

Some colleges and universities have partnered with AI companies and deem it as the future of schools. Arguably, the education sector must be at par with the changes of the world. It would be understandable if the purpose of employing AI and incorporating it to education means to expedite some processes and update technological skills. However, a line must be drawn somewhere. Universities should also take into account the implications AI brings and the long-term effects it has on students’ brains. 

What AI Does to Human Brains

The recent MIT study showing how constant dependence on AI in writing causes lower brain activity and reduces memory and linguistic skills must trigger an alarm. We get that. Writing can be daunting and intimidating. And with the fast-paced nature of 21st-century education, students resort to technology to help them ease their college problems. 

AI may help students squeeze some time to finish writing and other assignments. They may even gain higher academic scores through it, but  the question is: Have they truly learned the lessons, and could they apply them in real-life scenarios? Was there really knowledge transfer when they actually just outsourced it from machines? 

Learning from the Greats

Perhaps this is not only about the rise of AI, per se. This is about improving the system, not to merely adapt with the advancements, but to look deeper and ask: What could we do to preserve authentic learning and produce tangible outcomes-based approaches? 

Perhaps it doesn’t hurt to look back and learn from the great minds of old. They didn’t have the technology like we have now, but they still had insurmountable wisdom able to circumvent the high seas of the Earth, fly to the skies and explore their limits, and uncover secrets of the galaxies—all by allowing their human intellect to fully function. 

Great classic writers and researchers still influence today, all because what they created was authentic, real, birthed from the language of observed experiences—not a collage of concepts from who-knows-who. It might have taken some of them years to finish their pieces, but it is their honor to use human intellect. They held it so much that it rewarded them with greatness and recognition, even centuries past after they left. The lesson they give: We can look ahead, but not without our minds. And advancement doesn’t have to bypass real processes.

The Reckoning

The academic sphere of the 21st century can speed up processes and update digital skills for sure, but we can only hope it does so with caution. Because just like what writing does, real learning heals and makes humans whole. 

In the end, if nobody would do substantial and effective policies with regard to AI in education, chances are, universities would only produce graduates who were good at records but not really in practice. 

It would then be a reckoning too great to deal with. 

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Sources: 

• Student Writing: Strategies to Reverse Ongoing Decline

• What Happens After A.I. Destroys College Writing?

• Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task