Technology

A calculator (in most cases) can't just do a problem for you, and when it can those calculators are banned (the reason you can't use ti84s on gen chem exams in college, or and 89x in a calc 1 class). Such a tool means that you really don't have to understand to to get the answer. To me your comment reads that if I get the answer to a problem by typing it into wolfram alpha it's the same as working through the problem on your own, as long as you understand how WA got there. I wholeheartedly disagree that somebody that is using wolfram alpha to get all of their answers actually knows jack shit about math, kinda like how anybody using generative AI for writing doesn't have to know jack shit about the subject and just give a semi-specific prompt based on a small amount of prior research. It's very easy for me to type into a GPT bot "write a paper on the social and political factors that led to the haitian revolution. It's a completely different experience to sift through documents and actually learn what happened then write about that. I'm fairly confident I could "write" a solid paper using AI without doing almost any research if it's a topic I know literally anything about. Eg: I don't know very much about the physics of cars but I can definitely get generative AI to give you a decent paper on how and why increases in engine size can lead to an increase in efficiency just by knowing that fact to be true and proofreading the mess the AI throws together for me. The fact that you consider these tools the same as a calculator (which I might add that we still often restrict the use of, eg. no wolfram alpha on your multivariable final) is astounding to me tbh.