Winning Essay by Janine Malinao

Is AI an Opportunity or a Threat?

I still remember the first time I used an AI tool for my report. I was staring at a blank page at 3 a.m., overwhelmed by deadlines and to do lists, when I type my half-formed question into a chatbot. Within seconds, it gave me a well-structured outline clearer than my foggy brain could manage to do after hours of frustration.  In that moment I felt what many students now feel; AI can be a lifeline.  But as I have continued to use AI, sometimes for good but sometimes out of laziness, I have realized that AI in education is both a golden opportunity and a subtle threat. It is not the tool that decides which side wins, but us, the humans who wield it.

On one hand, AI is brilliant helper. A student in a rural town with no access to expert tutors can now get instant explanations to a complex topics. AI tools shrinks language barriers as well, as it helps translate texts to English. Personalize AI tutors can adapt to a student’s pace in ways that even the best teacher in the the crowded classroom often cannot. For curious mind, AI is like having a library and a patient mentor in your pocket; always awake and always ready to help.

Moreover, AI is pushing us to learn more efficiently. Instead of spending hours stuck on boring tasks, students can focus on critical thinking and creativity. AI can grade practice quizzes, provide feedback on drafts, and generate examples for better understanding. Some students use AI to practice public speaking by having it critique their speeches. Other use it to brainstorm project ideas or create study schedules that match their learning styles. This frees teachers to do what AI cannot, to inspire, to empathize and guide us through the messy, very human parts of learning.

However, there is a darker side. The line between using AI as a tool and letting it do your work for you is thin and blurry. A student might start by asking AI to check grammar and end up submitting an AI-generated essays as their own. In such moments, AI becomes less of assistant and more of a poison that weakens our minds and creativity. After all, if a machine can think for you, why bother thinking at all? The temptation to shortcut learning is real and more often dangerous.

Another danger is that AI, for all its “intelligence,” many students trust AI answers blindly, forgetting that AI pulls information from vast ocean that contains misinformation and bias. A chatbot might a paragraph that sounds perfect but is factually wrong and misguided. If we rely too much on AI, we risk losing our ability to question, to verify and to challenge what we read which is a skill that our education is supposed to nurture.

Some people fear AI will make teachers obsolete, but I think the opposite is true. Good teachers will become even more essential. They will help us see where AI stop and human understanding begins. They will teach us how to fact-check and how to apply knowledge in real life, thing no AI can fully do for us.

So, Is AI an opportunity or a threat? In my view, it is both. AI is not a villain plotting to replace teachers or ruin our brains. Nor is a magical wand to fix our learning struggles. It is a tool; a powerful, imperfect and entirely dependent too on how responsibly we use it. The real threat is complacency, where we surrender our curiosity and creativity to a convenient algorithm.

I truly believe the future of education with AI should be built on balance. Schools should not ban AI outright, nor should they let it run wild devouring the minds of learners. Instead, they should teach us how to use AI ethically, like citing it as a source, cross-checking its output, and using it to learn. Students should be encouraged to combine AI’s speed with their own original thinking. Teachers should become the guides helping students navigate AI with integrity.

Most importantly, we, the students, must remember that AI can mimic knowledge but not wisdom. it can summarize a novel but not feel its heartbreak. it can solve math problem but not understand our triumph when we solve it ourselves. The real magic of learning lies in our inherent human sparks, the way our mind works, they way we questions things around us, the way we strive, the way we imagine and our ability to wonder.

If we guard our inherent sparks while using AI as a partner and not as a substitute, then AI will be one of the greatest opportunities our education ever had. The threat only wins if we let it makes us passive. In the end, the choice is ours, and that, perhaps, is the best lesson AI can teach us. Even the smartest machine cannot replace the mind that dares to think beyond it.