STUDENTS' STANFORD STUNNERS : A.I. PUNCH ESSAY

YET the same Stanford dropouts who seem to be making the most money right now are often working on the very technology that is worsening life for their former classmates.

Emerging research has begun to show that what most people feel is obvious : Relying on A.I. for cognitive tasks can reduce one's own intellectual capacity and resilience.

It's one thing to use it in the workplace, but in the classroom, difficulty is often precisely the point. Sure, a robot can lift 600 pounds much more easily than I can - but that doesn't much help me if I'm trying to work out.

The same goes for the thinking exercise of education. However, telling that to students is about as attractive a message as '' eat your veggies '' or '' sleep eight hours.'' It feels like scolding.

STANFORD : IN APRIL 2026 - the proctored exam policy finally went into place. Because of A.I. most of us now take our tests by writing in blue books, like students a century ago, scribbling our answers by hand under keen observation.

Meanwhile, we wonder constantly what will happen next. Many students view these large language models as a job threat. The machines have gotten so much better at coding that junior engineers can't really compete.

A Stanford computer science degree means something very different today from what it did when we set foot on campus - no longer is there a functional guarantee of an entry-level position.

But for those willing to dream up a company with '' A.I. '' in the name, there is a nearly surefire route to monetary gain.

Perplexity, started right when my freshman year began, is an example of a '' wrapper '' start-up - in other words, a company that does not have its own proprietary A.I. and merely repackages existing models in a different form. It is a search tool, and loses money essentially every time a new user inputs a query. 

In April 2024, it reached a billion dollar valuation; two months later, that number tripled. In May 2025,  it announced that it was. fund-raising at a $14 billion valuation, which had grown to $18 billion by July, and $20 billion by September.

Money in Silicon Valley has become a game of almost meaningless numbers bandied about in a breathtaking casual manner. It contributes to the whirlpool effect students at Stanford have felt around tech and lucre - if your teammate can drop out and start a nine-figure company, why shouldn't you profit too?

Why put all your energy into being a student when it seems like everyone around you is getting rich?

One time during sophomore year, I was working on homework in my dorm common room with an acquaintance when she offhandedly remarked, '' I bought a house in Las Vegas last week.''  

She continued, '' It's good for taxes.'' It's hard to put your earbuds in and get right back to your problem set when someone says something like that.

This Master Essay Publishing continues. !WOW! thanks The New York Times and Theo Baker.