This week’s readings tackled an issue that we all have been facing in the academic world. Dinsmore and Fryer (2026) brought forth many issues that arise when students bypass the struggle of learning new content by asking LLMs for summaries. It was surprising to me that summarizing is actually an important part of the learning process and accumulating information into our current schemas. During the NotebookLM portion of class, when asked to summarize our sources, NotebookLM referenced this “illusion of mastery,” or the belief that because one read an LLM summary of the content, one understands it. According to Dinsmore and Fryer, this is not the case, as one never went through the process of comprehending the material.

LLM companies harvesting data is concerning and an issue that needs to be brought to the forefront more. It is worrisome that you make the effort to remove your data from their systems. I believe that the more and more we mention these issues, the more and more pressure we put on these large companies to change their privacy policies. After these readings and experiments, I am making more of a conscious effort to remove data I do not want to share with the world from ALL LLMs that I have used.

Dinsmore, Dan L., and Luke K Fryer. “What Does Current genAI Actually Mean for Student Learning?” Elsevier, 2026, www.sciencedirect.com/journal/learning-and-individual-differences.