Yes, me too! You've nailed the fundamental problem here. Kids are not using AI as a spell-checker, it's a substitute for thinking.

Back in the day (before AI learning tools), I was a tutor for high school English students. Before I started, I imagined I would be helping students structure their ideas, explaining points of composition, style and grammar.

More often than not, students would show up at sessions with a blank page and tell me that "they knew what they wanted to say, but not how to say it". largely, they did not. Many were hoping to have me pull an essay out of the air and dictate it to them. I was not keen to do that, and would try to coax some ideas and opinions out, and try to get them to turn them into analysis.

Sorry if this anecdote seems irrelevant, but if students like the ones I tutored are just using AI prompts now, they are bypassing the thinking stage entirely. RIP personal expression.