> allowing students to write their assessments with the help of LLMs changes the students’ depth of understanding, as well as their ability to synthesize, formalize, and drum up their own arguments and objections

indeed but LLMs improve these capabilities. Let me explain:

Most educators behave as if using an LLM robs the student of their ability to think. That has not and never been my experience.

You can just tell an LLM to debate, find out inconsistencies and issues in your writing, and challenge you, and it will very well do that!

LLMs for me, cheaply replace teachers who can barely be accessed during office hours because they are so busy doing research or overwhelmed with grading coursework.

In a typical educational setup, I might have half an hour at best with a teacher who looks kindly upon me, and at worst, five minutes with a teacher who doesn't like being around me. An LLM has no emotion, but it has knowledge, it has inference rules, and it has the ability to push back, debate, and find out inconsistencies, bugs and gaps in my thinking.

Behavior that is exactly what I need consistently, in a good teacher.

A frontier LLM is a good teacher who doesn't play games, has no emotion, infinite patience and always available for $20/mo.