Delhi students are using AI to make learning easier, but at what cost?

The words school and learning often bring forth a flood of memories: Chalk-dusted blackboards, bustling corridors echoing with laughter, hurried lunch breaks, and above all, the pressure of impending project deadlines.

Fast forward to today, and we find ourselves in an era governed by Artificial Intelligence, not merely in boardrooms or coding labs, but in the heart of classrooms themselves. While much has been said about how AI has transformed the way we work in the corporate world, its subtler, and arguably more profound, impact has been on the very process of learning.A recent survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Research and Governance (CPRG) brings this shift into sharper focus.

The study, conducted across Delhi’s higher education institutions, revealed that nearly half of all students use AI tools multiple times a week, with nearly one in four relying on them daily.What was once a methodical, reflective journey through knowledge has, for many, it has become an exercise in digital delegation, efficient, yes, but also hollow.

AI in classrooms: A lifeline students don’t fully trust

For students who are growing up in the world of artificial intelligence, it is essential for them to become conversant with the emerging trends.

However, what is not acceptable is the fact that they are turning to AI not for novelty, but for necessity. Assignments are piling up. Exams are around the corner. The internet is always there as a saviour.The CPRG data offers clarity: 84% use AI tools for research, 76% for writing, and 68% to understand difficult subjects. In fast-paced academic environments, AI has become a lifeline, one that saves time, reduces effort, and helps students appear productive.And yet, peeling off the layers reveals a startling fact. Students are leveraging AI constantly, but they do not completely trust it. Only 6% described AI-generated content as highly accurate. Many admitted they cross-check responses, paraphrase outputs, or just use it for structure.It’s a system built on partial faith.

Learning skipped

In numerous colleges and universities, physical footfall has reduced. Professors speak of essays that look extremely perfect, too polished, too impersonal.

As reported by TNN, one faculty member noted how students once struggled to construct arguments; now, they hand in pieces that read like articles, but fall apart under questioning.What is happening now is a subtle change, but significant. AI is helping students complete academic tasks, but it may be erasing the academic process itself.Many students don’t view it as a problem. They believe that AI is helping them to get things done.

But teachers are apprehensive that it is paving the way for a diluted ground of effort, originality, and critical struggle. Assignments are no longer considered a task to gather knowledge and grapple with intellectual curiosity. They have been translated into mere checkboxes, mechanised, outsourced, and increasingly devoid of space.

A system behind the curve

While students are racing ahead, the institutions around them are grappling hard to inch closer.

Few colleges have issued guidelines about AI use. Fewer still have updated their academic integrity policies to account for generative tools. Professors worry about awareness; some are vigilant, others unaware that the neatly typed essay they just marked may not have passed through the student’s mind at all.The CPRG study doesn’t just highlight usage, it reveals a systemic gap in regulation, awareness, and response.

Over 47% of students said they aren’t sure how to use AI tools effectively, while 45% cited a lack of awareness about available options. In many colleges, especially beyond Delhi’s central universities, the digital divide is wide.The result? Some students master the tools. Others don’t know where to start. AI fluency, it turns out, is quickly becoming a new marker of privilege.

The quiet erosion

Ask students what concerns them most about AI, and their answers aren’t about ethics; they’re about accuracy.

Many describe moments when AI gave them incorrect facts, out-of-context data, or superficial explanations.Others describe how AI often misses nuance, especially in subjects like philosophy, history, or gender studies. The machine can simulate understanding. But it cannot think.And yet, the dependency grows.It’s convenient. It’s free. It’s always available. But over time, convenience becomes habit, and habit begins to replace effort.That’s what worries seasoned educators. AI is not just changing how students work, it’s reshaping how they approach knowledge. It removes friction. And in education, friction matters.Friction is where confusion becomes clarity. Where the long road to understanding begins. AI offers shortcuts. But shortcuts come with trade-offs, and no algorithm can teach resilience.

Where policy falls silent

India’s National Education Policy 2020 is rich in vision and optimism, calling for digital integration, new-age skills, and flexible learning.

But it says little about artificial intelligence. AI is everywhere in Delhi’s classrooms. But it’s nowhere in official planning.Initiatives like YUVAi, SATHEE, or NEAT attempt to bring AI to learners, but there’s little clarity on usage ethics, institutional responsibility, or faculty preparedness. The gap between policy and practice is widening.As a result, students are self-navigating an AI landscape without guardrails.

Some thrive. Others drift. And many learn not through deliberate guidance, but through trial, error, and whatever social media tells them is the latest tool.

Beyond tools, towards thought

The CRPG warns that excessive dependence on AI may endanger critical thinking and creativity skills in students, two major pillars of meaningful education. That warning needs to be taken seriously.Technology in education is not new. But what Delhi is experiencing isn’t just technological adoption, it’s a quiet realignment of learning itself.

Students are now curators of knowledge rather than constructors. They’re managing information, not wrestling with it.And that may be the cost we pay for unchecked digital acceleration: A generation fluent in tools, but unpracticed in thought.

The moment of reckoning

Delhi’s students are not wrong to use AI. They are, in many ways, adapting to a system that values results over reflection, grades over growth. But when tools become teachers, and prompts replace problems, we must ask: what happens to the mind that no longer strains?Education was never meant to be frictionless. And while AI can support learning, it must not become a substitute for it. Delhi’s classrooms are changing. The question is, will we change with them, or let the machine do the thinking for us?