In recent months, Artificial Intelligence (AI) bots such as ChatGPT have taken academia by storm. Students are using the tool to write essays, solve math equations, and clarify concepts that they find complex.

However, New Trier students have also been exploring alternate uses for AI – ones that have nothing to do with school work. 

Senior Matthew Perchik, former captain of the boys soccer team, uses ChatGPT to build workout plans. 

“I just plug in which body parts I want to work on, and it comes up with a workout,” he said.

  Perchik also noted the high quality of workout that ChatGPT produces.

“The workouts are actually really good. It feels like the stuff I would normally do at the gym.”

Maddie Sell, a senior, uses AI to come up with recipes for cooking. She types in the quantities of ingredients that she has at her disposal, and ChatGPT crafts an elaborate recipe.

“It’s been a great experience so far,” said Sell. “It helps me make the most out of the food in my kitchen. I wouldn’t have been able to come up with these recipes on my own.”

Other than the few recreational uses for AI, most students still see no use for it other than for academic purposes. The variety of tasks that Chat GPT can complete – ranging from math to english to coding – make it a very appealing tool for students.

With AI expanding its influence everyday, students have found it to be more accessible than before. Snapchat, a social media application immensely popular among Trevians, recently added its own chat bot that comes with a subscription to Snapchat Plus.

Snapchat’s AI bot is extremely conversational. Rather than operating in a manner similar to ChatGPT, the Snapchat bot is “intended to work like messaging another person within Snapchat, like you would your friends.”

As AI grows more personal and human-like in its conversational capabilities, it will become progressively more difficult to differentiate human writing from artificial writing.  

“It is exciting what AI can do. But it is also horrifying,” said Perchik.