Is Using AI Cheating?

In July 2023, Professor Ethan Mollick discussed how AI tools like ChatGPT enable students to complete assignments effortlessly, leaving some to question if education is still relevant.

By the way, if you don’t know who Prof Mollick is…

1. Position: Associate Professor at Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
2. Expertise: Studies AI’s effects on work, entrepreneurship, and education.
3. Achievements: Named one of TIME Magazine's Most Influential People in AI.
4. Publications: Author of Co-Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller on AI.
5. Research: Co-directs 美国宾夕法尼亚大学 - 沃顿商学院 ’s Generative AI Labs, focusing on AI’s benefits and risks.
6. Academic Background: Holds a PhD and MBA from MIT, and a bachelor’s from 美国哈佛大学 .

Last week (30th August 2024), Prof. Mollick’s follow-up piece, "Post-Apocalyptic Education", expands on this, emphasizing that the issue isn’t AI itself—it’s our perceptions of effort and productivity.

In business, just like in education, the conversation around AI centers on whether it undermines human effort or enhances it. According to the 德勤 State of Generative AI (Q3 2024), 67% of organizations are increasing their investments in AI, seeing it as essential to growth.

But the real question that I know you might be asking (perhaps in the back of the mind ??) is:

Does AI diminish the value of human work, or does it allow us to work smarter?

Why Some People Think That Using AI Is Cheating?

In court, the saying is innocent until proven guilty, right? So why are some so quick to judge that using AI equals cheating?

Let me play defendant for a while, and see if I have the knack for being a good lawyer ??

Suspicion #1 - Fear of AI

Just as in education, people often label AI as "cheating" because of an underlying fear of change.

In my previous article title the “Unwarranted Fear of AI”, we explored how this fear stems from unfamiliarity. Much like calculators were initially viewed with scepticism in math classes, AI is facing similar criticism today.

Is it really AI people fear, or is it the speed at which it's changing how we work?

Suspicion #2 - Ethics

In Prof. Mollick's updated insights, we see that educators question whether students using AI to bypass learning undermines educational integrity.

The same concerns apply to businesses.

Should there be transparency when AI is used for decision-making or content creation?

I mean… just like students use AI for essays, should businesses disclose if their reports or communications were AI-generated?

The ethical concerns surrounding AI, whether in education or business, often come down to the balance between transparency and effort…. which brings me to the third suspicion.

Suspicion #3 - Justification of Effort

One of the main issues in both education and business is how we view effort.

Educators worry that AI is letting students sidestep learning, while bosses may fear that employees using AI are skipping the "hard work".

But, as Prof. Mollick notes, simply avoiding AI won’t solve the issue. Instead, we need to rethink how we measure effort.

In business, this concern is highlighted in the phenomenon I wrote about in "The Smuggling of AI". Employees secretly use AI tools to boost productivity, fearing judgment from bosses who equate "effort" with time spent.

This reminds me of a quote I learned from leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell :

We judge others by their actions, not intentions. Yet, we judge ourselves by our intentions, not actions.

And for now, it’s not really easy to justify effort, isn’t it? I mean, if the pizza got served on time, do we worry about how it was baked?

For now, here’s what I propose: It’s time to move beyond that mindset and focus on outcomes rather than time or traditional effort.

Suspicion #4 – Will AI Kill Creativity?

One of the most common fears about AI is that it will stifle human creativity.

But in reality, AI can complement, and even amplify, creative work. Tools like Adobe Sensei are already helping designers and creators by automating routine processes like image resizing, color matching, and even generating design suggestions. This frees up designers to focus on more strategic, high-level creative tasks while leaving the repetitive grunt work to AI.

For writers and marketers, AI tools such as Jasper.AI or Copy.ai can generate content drafts based on provided inputs, but the real magic happens when human creativity steps in to refine and mould the AI-generated content into something unique. In the creative process, AI isn’t a replacement for human imagination—it’s an accelerator.

And full disclosure: Perplexity helped me with the research for this article, Junia helped suggest some keywords for some quick SEO (Search Engine Optimization) wins, ChatGPT helped me draft the outline, and Grammarly helped me with, well, my grammar!

By now, I hope if you’re not at least mildly convinced that AI is helping us (and not cheating us in any other way we would have cheated ourselves), let’s look at the positive side of things.

Here’s what I suggest: Let me perhaps show you some practical applications of AI (and I’m going to include real-world examples), and even share some recommendations on how to get started on this AI “train”.

But if by the end of the next 2 minutes you’re still convinced that using AI is cheating, that it’s going to bring about the end of creativity, destroy the value of hard work or start us on the destruction of humanity, then hit back, read about your ex-colleagues' recent promotion, inspect the selfie of a LinkedIn connection you have no recollection of, or even rewatch that TikTok video that’s reposted here. ??

How Can We Work Smarter With AI

Just as Prof. Mollick suggests that AI should be embraced in education to enhance learning, the same applies to business.

Here are some real-world examples of AI doing the heavy lifting while humans focus on high-value work:

1. Customer Service: AI chatbots can handle routine customer inquiries, freeing human agents to deal with complex, emotionally charged issues that require empathy. Convin ’s Agent Assist is a perfect example, learning from customer interactions and assisting agents with real-time suggestions.
2. Content Creation: Need a blog post or social media update? AI Blog Writer by companies like Simplified can quickly generate drafts, allowing creators to focus on the strategic and creative elements, leaving the repetitive tasks to the machine.
3. Data Analysis: In fields like healthcare, AI processes large amounts of data quickly and accurately. It helps doctors identify critical patterns, and just as Mollick suggests, AI can help educators and students focus on higher-order thinking.
4. Research and Innovation: AI can sift through large data sets, identifying trends and correlations that would take human researchers much longer. This gives humans more time to interpret findings creatively.
5. Manufacturing & Supply Chain: AI optimizes production schedules and supply chain management. For instance, 西门子 uses AI-driven predictive maintenance to reduce downtime by forecasting machine failures before they happen. This allows manufacturing teams to prevent costly delays, while the AI monitors operations continuously.
6. Marketing Personalization: AI tools like HubSpot and Salesforce 's Einstein enable businesses to deliver highly personalized marketing experiences. By analyzing customer behavior, these platforms tailor messages and product recommendations, enhancing customer engagement. This allows marketing teams to focus on strategy rather than manual data crunching.
7. Human Resources: AI-driven HR tools assist in screening resumes, reducing the time it takes to find the right candidates. For example, HireVue uses AI to analyze video interviews, providing insights into candidates' potential fit for a role based on facial expressions, tone, and word choice. This helps HR teams make more informed hiring decisions faster.
8. Legal Research: AI tools like ROSS Intelligence have revolutionized legal research by helping attorneys quickly sift through large volumes of case law to identify relevant precedents. Before AI, legal research was often labour-intensive and time-consuming. With AI handling this aspect, lawyers can focus on building more strategic arguments and offering tailored advice to clients. ROSS Intelligence was developed to understand legal queries in plain English, making it easier for legal professionals to extract the information they need and improving the efficiency of case preparation.

The list can really go on, and if you’ve read this far, I suspect you know AI can potentially be (if it’s not already) the game-charger for your organization.

So, what lenses do we need to clean for a better view?

Looking Ahead As We Redefine Our Realities

If we put aside the thought that AI is bad and that it's "cheating" when we use it, how else can we switch up the narrative?

Partnering with AI to Spur Our Growth

In a future where AI is fully integrated into the workplace, employees can spend less time on mundane tasks, and more time on creative, strategic work. Rather than seeing AI as "cheating," businesses should consider it an enabler for growth. AI enhances productivity without diminishing the value of human effort, much like Prof. Mollick argues that AI in education should help students focus on deeper learning.

And we already covered this quite extensively in our previous article on Primary Task and Secondary Tasks.

Can We Do Without This AI Partnership?

Choosing not to adopt AI could leave businesses lagging behind their competitors. Prof. Mollick suggests that ignoring AI’s potential in education will only harm students' ability to learn in the long term.

The same applies to businesses.

From the 2024 Work Trend Index Report, we already know that companies that avoid AI risk falling behind, while those that embrace it are positioning themselves for success.

Actionable AI-Adoption Steps for Companies Big or Small

Sometimes the best way to get better clarity, is to take a few steps forward. Just like in the movie World War Z, where Brad Pitt’s character Gerry Lane said this:

I used to work in dangerous places. People who moved, survived. Movement is life.

And no, the world is not going zombie apocalypse yet, but I think there’s much truth in that statement. If we stay still and let the world move us, we might not like where we ended up.

So, I figured I’d share some simple, actionable steps to get you started in embracing AI.

1. Identify Routine Tasks Suitable for Automation: Look for repetitive and time-consuming tasks—customer service queries, data entry, scheduling. These are the first areas where AI can make a big impact.
2. Choose the Right AI Tools for Your Needs: Small businesses can leverage tools like HubSpot or Zendesk , while larger enterprises might opt for more advanced platforms like Salesforce Einstein. Please reach out to Lance Cheang and VLAN Asia for a quick chat on the possibilities.
3. Start Small and Scale Gradually: Run a pilot project in one department, see how AI enhances productivity, and scale as you gain confidence.
4. Upskill Your Workforce: AI is only as powerful as the people who use it. Make sure your team is trained to work with AI tools to maximize their potential. Drop me a DM so we can share how we can AI-enable your workforce, without them learning AI!
5. Foster a Culture of Innovation: Encourage your team to experiment with AI and explore new ways to automate workflows. Don’t let fear prevent you from innovating.

Want an even smaller step? Check out the latest edition of Deloitte State of Generative AI (Q3 2024), and read up on companies reaping big rewards when they fully embed AI into their operations. No kidding… even small steps towards AI can lead to big gains.

Will The Fear Of Cheating Cheat Us Out Of The Opportunity Of Our Generation?

Using AI isn’t about cutting corners; it’s about redefining how we work.

Just as Prof. Mollick advocates for a transformation in education to integrate AI effectively, businesses need to adapt, using AI to complement, not replace, human effort.

The key isn’t to fear AI or label it as cheating, but to embrace it as a tool that helps us focus on what really matters—creativity, strategy, and innovation.

My Ma had been a school teacher her entire life, and trust me when I tell you that she nagged me all the time on the value of hard work.

However, as I grew older, in her infinite wisdom, she peeled back on the layers of "onion" wisdom, and told me this:

"Working hard is important. But if you are still working hard at the same things after a while, you’re probably not working smart.”

Ma passed away way before the golden age of AI, but her lesson remained true.

It’s time to work smarter, not harder.