Prioritize Character Development to Combat AI Cheating

In Dr. Peterson’s analysis of the problems of his lying student and dealing with increasing AI fraud in schools, character development was his last stated concern. This disturbs me. Is the lower quality writing of this future lying adult, or the lack of trustworthiness, the greater loss to himself and society — never mind scholarship? Poor, undereducated people with character always have more wealth than liars and cheats who get to rule over them. Some people still teach this. So what should we be protecting young minds from? 

A cheating student is reacting to his teachers’ (including parents’) unspoken prioritization of values: material advancement, status, expediency, over immaterial goods that never used to need explanation, such as his soul. When the Honor Code was developed, Mark 8:36 was part of the fabric of society even if only as an ideal. Now, nothing not quantifiable has meaning. If that’s the case, does anything? 

We have tried a great social experiment claiming that moral development can advance in a secular-materialist-quantifiable paradigm. I think this testifies otherwise. To truly combat illicit AI encroachment in the classroom, we must begin with renewing character formation in our kids. And … our adults?