Just for the record, I did my own research and found that for all practical purposes neither NSDA nor NCFL meaningfully ban AI. NSDA allows it during debate prep time! If I haven’t pointed out the problem with that to your satisfaction by now, it’s never going to happen.
Out of curiosity, I asked good old Google Gemini to tell me the pros and cons of AI in high school debate. It summarized it thus: Using AI in high school debate offers powerful research acceleration and practice capabilities, but it risks eroding core analytical skills, increasing academic dishonesty, and worsening competitive resource gaps.
No kidding.
Here’s the rest of it:
A discussion on how debate competitors weigh the real-world advantages and pitfalls of generative tools:
Arguments For AI in High School Debating
- Research Efficiency: AI helps students rapidly parse dense texts, summarize long articles, and brainstorm alternative angles or counter-arguments during prep time.
Well, that’s my original argument against it, that instead of using your prep time to prep, you can have AI prep for you. I do agree that it can be useful it that parsing and summarizing, but I’m on the fence with the brainstorming, at least insofar as it harms real-life human brainstorming.
- Accessibility and Practice: Under-resourced debate teams can use AI as a sparring partner to simulate opposing viewpoints and practice rebuttal delivery when human coaches or teammates are unavailable.
I hadn’t thought of that. It’s a real benefit.
- Real-World Readiness: Proponents argue that debate must reflect the modern technological landscape; learning to leverage and audit AI safely prepares students for future academic and professional environments.
That’s the one that may be true and at the same time may be the most specious, that we’re preparing students for a world full of AI. The question is, How should the world be full of AI?
Arguments Against AI in High School Debating
- Erosion of Critical Thinking: Relying on AI to structure arguments or write blocks bypasses the deep analytical struggle required to genuinely understand a topic.
Part of my main thesis, of course.
- Fabricated Evidence and Hallucinations: Generative tools frequently invent fake citations, misattribute data, and produce false facts, which undermines competitive integrity and rigorous source verification.
I haven’t talked about this, the possibility of bad sources, which I am told is a big problem when teams do AI research. Frankly I think this is easily solved: in a word, verify!
- Inequity and Pay-to-Win Dynamics: Access to advanced, premium AI toolkits can widen the competitive gap between wealthy school programs and underfunded public school teams.
I pointed out that the folks out there that provide case materials for a fee are among those with a lot to lose with AI. On the other hand, this is where we get away from the basic Q&D Gemini approach and into specifically designed AI materials for a fee. They’re probably already out there; if not, before long you will indeed see Chat1AR at an app sale near you. I’ve only scratched the surface of AI’s potential [mis]uses in high school forensics.
Would you like help drafting a specific pro-AI or con-AI case brief for a resolution, or do you need tournament rules regarding ethical AI disclosure?
You know, the last place I would look for the ethics of AI is AI itself.
Which is about all I’m going to say on the subject. If you’re reading this, you obviously have an interest in the subject. As an educator, how will you use AI so that your students can benefit from it? How do you avoid the pitfalls? Tough questions with no easy answers. But you need to not merely be thinking about this but prioritizing your thinking about it. Given that every Google search can kick off with a Gemini AI response, students already in the middle of it. AI’s ability to undermine education is clear as day. Its ability to render high school debate a meaningless exercise is also pretty clear.
Choose wisely, my friend.
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