AI and Student Flourishing: Chasing What Matters in Life

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a defining feature of the modern college experience, promising efficiency, connection, and academic advantage. Yet students often adopt AI without reflecting on how its use shapes the deeper aims of education and life. This essay contends that student flourishing is not achieved through the relentless pursuit of grades, credentials, or technological shortcuts, but through commitment to three enduring concepts: meaningful friendships, virtuous character, and authentic contentment. Using a narrative metaphor that distinguishes “real” from “fake” pursuits, the paper introduces the concept of the AI Trap—the tendency to rely on AI in ways that bypass the human effort, struggle, and relational presence required for flourishing. The essay examines AI's influence on student relationships, character formation, and contentment, drawing on empirical research on loneliness, Aristotelian virtue ethics, and psychological studies of wellbeing. It concludes by arguing that while AI is an indispensable tool in higher education, educators have a moral obligation to guide students toward forms of AI use that support—rather than displace—the human practices through which flourishing is ultimately achieved.