Savior or Saboteur? Rethinking Role of AI in the Education Crisis
- Krzysztof Kosman
- Jun 16
- 3 min read
AI has entered the classroom — whether we’re ready or not. From personalized learning plans to automated lesson generation, tools like ChatGPT and EditAI are being hailed as revolutionary. But alongside the innovation comes anxiety: about cheating, about dehumanization, about the collapse of pedagogical standards. Is AI in education a breakthrough or a breakdown?
This article explores both sides — through the lens of EditAI, a Lithuanian edtech startup that’s building AI-powered tools for teachers. Their journey is not just about deploying technology, but about confronting the deep discomforts it exposes.
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The Cheating Crisis: A Symptom, Not a Disease
90% of students use ChatGPT. In many classrooms, that number is closer to 100%. What’s being labeled as an “AI cheating crisis” may be, in fact, something more fundamental: a meaning crisis.
As Kęstutis Jovaišas of EditAI puts it:
“If you’re doing something you don’t believe in, you’re doing it for someone else — not for yourself.”
When students use AI to complete work they find meaningless, it’s not just laziness or mischief. It’s an optimization problem. Why write a paper when the answer is already online — or can be generated in seconds?
Cheating, in this sense, is not new. What’s new is the scale — and the frictionlessness. AI removes the barrier between apathy and execution. It forces educators to confront a hard truth: if students don’t see the value in the task, they will outsource it.
The Illusion of Control
Many institutions are responding with bans, filters, and surveillance tools. But these are reactionary strategies built on outdated assumptions. The internet wasn’t stopped. Smartphones weren’t stopped. AI won’t be either.
Kristina Jonkuvienė, EditAI’s co-founder, offers a different lens:
“It depends on the rules. In biology class, we used calculators. In math class, we couldn’t. We weren’t cheating — we were just following different expectations.”
The takeaway? AI use isn’t inherently cheating. It becomes cheating when we fail to clearly define where it belongs, and why. That burden falls on educators, not on the technology.
A System Cracked Open
Let’s go deeper. The real threat AI poses to education isn’t plagiarism — it’s irrelevance.
“Fifty years ago, education was a scarce resource,” says Kęstutis. “Today, information is abundant. YouTube, TikTok, AI — it’s all there. So what is school for now?”
If school is no longer the gatekeeper of knowledge, then its purpose must shift — from information transfer to meaning-making. From uniform delivery to personalized relevance. From passive absorption to active exploration.
EditAI tries to address this by generating lesson plans that connect standard curriculum topics with student interests — presenting biology through sports, music through astronomy, chemistry through everyday life. This is not about replacing textbooks. It’s about re-contextualizing them.
Power and Paradox of AI in the Education
AI is not a neutral force. It can amplify both the best and worst of existing systems.
It can empower teachers to adapt materials to students with dyslexia or ADHD — or it can widen gaps if those tools are poorly distributed.
It can spark curiosity — or cement passivity.
It can save teachers time — or increase their dependence on black-box systems.
“Every AI is a potential drug or a potential poison,” Kristina warns. “It depends how we use it.”
This duality is the core tension of AI in education. And it will not be resolved by edtech companies alone. It will be resolved — or not — by the values we bring into classrooms, policies, and pedagogy.
Trust the Teachers
One of the most damaging myths in AI discourse is that teachers will be replaced. This narrative erodes trust and fuels resistance. But the truth is more subtle — and more hopeful.
Teachers are the gatekeepers. They are the ones who know their students. They are the only ones who can interpret what engagement feels like in a room, not just what it looks like in data.
“If you want to change education, you must help teachers,” says Kęstutis. “Not replace them. Help them be brave.”
EditAI does this by involving teachers directly in the product development process — integrating their feedback into every new version. It’s not just user testing. It’s co-creation.
AI Will Not Save Us — But It Can Help Us Save Ourselves
AI is neither savior nor saboteur. It’s a mirror. It reflects back what we ask of it — and what we avoid asking ourselves.
If the system is cracking, it’s not because of AI. It’s because the world changed, and we didn’t. AI simply made the cracks visible.
So the real question is not whether students are cheating. It’s whether the system still deserves their full engagement.
And maybe the next generation of educational tools shouldn’t aim to enforce compliance — but to earn curiosity.
