by LAURA RODRIGUEZ SALAMANCA
When Meta embedded AI bots in its apps, even students in the most remote corners of Colombia gained access. But rather than boosting learning, it’s getting in the way.
- Meta’s popularity has made it the first place many Colombian students encounter and use generative AI.
- Teachers report a surge in AI-generated homework and essays, while student performance on exams declines.
- Educators warn easy access to AI is deepening existing problems in the country, which was already struggling with low graduation and literacy rates.
Chemistry teacher María Intencipa misses the good old days — last year — when her small school in rural Colombia was sheltered from the artificial intelligence revolution by its remoteness.
José Gregorio Salas Rural High School, where she works, lacks enough computers and reliable internet. Few students can afford the high-end smartphones or data plans that top-of-the-line AI requires.
Intencipa had heard about ChatGPT, but from what she could tell, few of her students were using it. In 2023, some started whispering about getting help from “Lucia.” She thought it might be the name of a tutor, but they were referring to the Luzia app, which turns the WhatsApp messaging app into an AI bot.
Then, last year, AI metastasized to almost every class. Teachers across the school noticed a surge in unusually high-quality answers that didn’t resemble their students’ typical work. Homework and essays suddenly featured erudite arguments, sophisticated vocabulary, and points that had not been taught in class or the textbooks.
“When I assign homework, students just use AI,” Intencipa told Rest of World. “Because it’s easier.”
Despite the burst in brilliance, more kids were failing exams, teachers said.
Starting in July 2024, AI was suddenly everywhere all at once in Latin America after Meta Platforms started incorporating chatbots in its apps across the region. Whether users wanted them or not, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram became homes for a variety of AI bots.
The students of José Gregorio Salas Rural High School put them to work on their homework. This small community of farming and cattle-ranching families was no longer shielded from the AI revolution, which was disrupting education worldwide. It could no longer escape because the new bots were embedded in the apps everyone was already using. Meta had fine-tuned the apps for the emerging-market consumer, making them cheaper to use and designing them to work with less sophisticated phones and patchy connectivity.
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