What If AI Isn’t Cheating?

Before I say anything else, I want to be clear about one thing. I’m talking about adults.

I’m not talking about children in K-12 learning environments. I’m not talking about kids using AI to write papers, complete assignments, or skip the process of learning how to learn.

Children need to learn how to learn.

They need to learn how to work through a problem, write, revise, question, research, create, and try again. More than anything, they need to practice curiosity.

Curiosity is not always automatic. It grows when you use it. So, to the educators who are worried about AI in schools, I get it. I support you.

Children should not be using AI to create in place of learning how to create.

I’m not talking about children, I’m talking about adults.

Adults with jobs, businesses, ideas, responsibilities, problems to solve, and dreams they may have pushed aside because they didn’t have the time, money, skills, or support to try.

For those adults, I don’t think AI is cheating.

AI is a tool that rewards curiosity. 

Hear me out. I know that some people reading this have just had a very visceral reaction to that statement about AI.  I’m asking you to give me the 4 minutes it will take you to read this blog post, before you walk away.  (or worse leave a nasty comment)

I’m asking you to take a moment to be curious, even if it’s just a tiny pinch of curiosity about what I’m going to say.

I’ve been thinking a lot about why so many people hear the word AI and immediately think, cheating!

Not everyone, of course, but a lot of people.

I think there are several reasons. 

If you’re a creative person, AI can feel like it showed up overnight and started making art, music, videos, graphics, and writing. Things that have taken you years of practice and are now available to almost anyone with a chat prompt box.

AI can feel like a shortcut machine.

Or worse a machine that people are trusting too much, because someone you know followed bad advice or forgot that AI is not a person, not a friend, and not a replacement for judgment.

So yes, I understand why people are cautious. But cheating?

Cheating means something specific. It means breaking a rule. It means pretending you did something you didn’t do. It means hiding the use of a tool when disclosure is required. It means taking credit in a situation where the rules said not to use help.

But making something easier? Is that cheating?

Think about all of the things you use to make your life easier: microwave, air fryer, car, lawnmower, weather app on your phone, even a cookbook. Someone had to be curious and want to make something different and disrupt the status quo to bring you those things.

They are all tools to make your life easier. Are they cheating?

No.

They are tools.

That’s where I think a lot of the confusion around AI begins, because AI doesn’t feel like a  modification of a disruptive technology, it IS a disruptive technology. 

Modifications are like when we went from wood burning stoves to gas or electric, to microwaves and airfryers. It seems like a nice easy trip from one to the other, but I imagine the first step from wood to gas was scary and had a steep learning curve. 

Now I’m not old enough to have had a wood burning stove, but I’m old enough to remember a house with black and white TV and antenna, a wall wired dial phone (not push button), and the 5 o’clock whistle signaling it was time to go home for dinner.

In my lifetime, I’ve seen computers go from taking up an entire building to being affordable and “personal.” I’ve seen cell phones go from science fiction movies to being in everyone’s hand.

All of these innovations reshaped industries. Literally reshaped how business was done, and put many businesses out of business. There are no more pools of secretaries typing up documents because computers store documents and they can be edited and reprinted. 

Think about that for a moment. Think about when we only had hard copies of all documents stored in filing cabinet.. before copiers, we had … carbon paper, to make 2 copies of a single document! 

What happened to the file cabinet industry when people stopped needing to store all those documents? Or the manila folder industry!

So, yea. I think technology can be disruptive, but I don’t think any of that was cheating.

I do think that disruption is scary.

And it matters how we talk about and what we’re told about AI. 

For instance, we hear AI is “trained.” We hear it “learns.” We call it a “large language model.” But when humans hear words like language, trained and learned, we picture what those things mean to us, (human beings).

An athlete trains by practicing over and over again. A musician trains by learning technique, rhythm, expression, and discipline. A student learns by making mistakes, asking questions, building understanding, and connecting new information to what they already know.

AI doesn’t learn like that.

AI works through complex pattern prediction.

AI can respond based on patterns in language, context, examples, and information, but it isn’t thinking the way you think. 

That means: AI won’t replace your curiosity. It responds to it.

That’s why two people can open the same AI tool and get completely different results.

Same tool. Different levels of curiosity.

Your curiosity is where AI becomes powerful.

Not because it magically knows everything. Not because it replaces your brain. Not because it does the work of being human. Its magic is giving you access to outcomes you may not have the training or knowledge to create, but have the curiosity to explore.

AI can act like:

• a web developer in your pocket
• a programmer in your pocket
• a graphic designer in your pocket
• a marketing advisor in your pocket
• a brainstorming partner in your pocket
• a patient assistant that lets you ask the same question ten different ways until something finally clicks

That’s not cheating.

That’s access.

And for a lot of people, access matters.

Maybe you had an idea for a website, but you don’t know how to build one.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to write children’s books, but can’t illustrate.

Maybe you had a business idea, but you don’t know how to explain it.

Maybe you wanted to organize a process at work, but don’t know where to start.

Maybe you had a dream that always felt too big because you don’t have the money, the team, the technical skills, or the confidence to begin.

AI changes that. Not because it does everything for you, but because it lowers the barrier between your question and your next step.

For me, it all starts with three questions:

1. How does (fill in the blank) work?
2. Can you help me make that? or Can you make that for me?
3. Is this the easiest way?

Those questions may sound simple, but they are powerful because they turn AI from a novelty into a tool. They move you from “show me something interesting” to “help me solve something real.”

And once you start asking better questions, you start seeing more possibilities.

You can ask:

• What am I missing?
• Can this be simpler?
• Can this be turned into a tool?
• Can this solve a real problem?
• Can this help someone else?
• What would make this easier for a beginner?

That isn’t cheating.

The people who will benefit most from AI are not necessarily the most technical people. They are not necessarily the people with the fanciest software, the biggest budgets, or the most impressive credentials.

They are the curious ones.

The ones thinking about a problem they have and wondering if learning just one thing could help solve it.

The ones willing to try something, test it, adjust it, and ask again. The ones who understand that the value is not just in what AI gives you. The value is in what you are curious enough to ask.

That’s the shift I wish more people could see.

For me, the biggest shift was when I stopped asking AI to help me do things the way I’ve always been doing them, and started asking “is there an easier way?” and “how can you help me do this thing?”

AI isn’t cheating.  It’s a tool that rewards curiosity.

Are you curious?