Some fine thoughts here, finely expressed, too. It's the new dark ages, and lovers of the good, true and beautiful need to huddle around whatever valiant flames they can find. This essay is one of those flames.
I think this is just an expansion of what is lacking and dangerous in all the online tools we have to help us with knowledge.... I think the problem is that we are too lazy to teach creativity... the AI revolution could actually be a freeing thing as the only professions left are those that use creativity or teach creativity. making new things, teaching how to make or study new things. the problem with the teaching part is that the main necessary compnoant is to have small classes with many teachers. If you let me teach only classes of 10 students from kindergarden to post doc I could make sure that no one was sucked in and that they learned how to think and make. but we don't want to pay for that.
It’s a combination of workload and pressure for success rates. As faculty, we’ve been made completely responsible for whether or not a student passes, not their effort or preparedness, not their access to transportation or food or housing or materials, not our workload or physical or mental inability to connect with hundreds of students each semester.
Thank you for this piece. I’ve been collecting essays to share out with my colleagues. It’s difficult to find the time to write my own thoughts because when I find myself with any spare time, I’m so emotionally and intellectually burnt out a nap or mindlessly scrolling is all I can muster.
"not their access to transportation or food or housing or materials"
When I was teaching the university started a food bank for students who had trouble getting enough to eat, so I came to think that part of students' poor performance might be due to this or similar issues.
When I raised this idea with my colleagues the reply was a resounding "Nah, they're just lazy."
As a novelist and writing teacher, I am sorry to say that AI is coming for creative writing classrooms, too. Absolutely no question. Our creative professions are not being preserved; why would they be? There are active efforts to replace creatives in all fields with AI, including writers of fiction, poetry, screenplays. The tech is getting very sophisticated and it will keep getting better. The fact that a machine can't express or feel, but only replicate and recombine, will not matter to most people. After a generation, the ones who do care may not be able to tell the difference.
Just to follow up on this--I asked a creative writing professor and AI has absolutely become a problem for her! This fall she's going to try using Rumi drafting tech software, which surveils and records the students' keystrokes and software use while they write. In other words, freaking spyware. This just sounds straight up dystopian to me (Rumi!!), but so far no one has thought of a better solution. At her university, freshman comp now includes an intro unit on "ethical AI use" that teaches them how to use AI "only for generating ideas." Only!! I think my jaw hit the floor on that one. I can't imagine writing a novel while someone looks over my shoulder at every single letter I type; I can't imagine wanting to outsource my creativity to a machine; I can't imagine any of this. To professors who've been dealing with this problem for years now, I must look extremely naive.
Jacques Barzun, in _Science: The Glorious Entertainment_, observes that "a convenience is by definition a poor substitute." And when your work is to cultivate natural intelligence, artificial intelligence is as valuable as plastic flowers planted in a cornfield.
Hi Irina, Thanks for your trenchant thoughts here. It is interesting that both Pennebaker (whom you cite) and you spent many formative years at Southern Methodist University where some of us remain—and we celebrate as well as worry about all academic uses of AI. This is exam time in lots of American colleges and many of us here have recoiled from AI cheating and banned computer-aided exams, returning to handwritten ”blue books.” One irony is that we have difficulty deciphering our students’ handwriting.
Indeed, Bonnie! That drawer full of LAMY cartridges and fountain pens is a beautiful sight; the handwriting of the vast majority of my students is not. What's interesting, though, is that they are fascinated by my fountain pens and would, I think, take great pride in developing a better script if given the chance, just as many of them do seem exhilarated by the chance to write creatively. They have no real love for digital slop; it's just what's being sprayed at them. And that makes me angry.
I just spent eight and a half years completing (more to the point, and something I struggle to say with my full chest but should actually be proud to express--EARNING) a PhD because of the joy found in the struggle of grappling with ideas, challenging myself, and learning ever more, all in pursuit of feeling like I know less in the end than when I started (the more you know, the less you know, right?). What I learned from teaching undergrads is that this was already lost thanks to All Children Left Behind and Race to the Bottom, so really this new form of cheating and outsourcing thinking comes as no surprise when you consider that today's college students had K-12 teachers who were forbidden (because let's be honest--it was not the teachers' choice to be beholden to capitalistic test companies and governmental bodies that know nothing about pedagogy or learning) to teach them to think, grapple, or wallow in uncertainty and curiosity. I don't know how we come out of this without essentially restarting society because this endumbening is so richly rewarded now, and by the time this generation of students realizes what they've lost, they will have also lost all the resources and teachers who could have helped them get it back.
A crushing essay and a reminder that my nostalgia for the job I left four years ago is truly quixotic. My dream job existed for about 8-10 of the 16 years I spent in academe. The humiliations and futilities that pushed me out are worse than ever.
I expected more of your rage to be directed at administrators and executives who explicitly push for AI to be integrated into curriculum. They have indeed sold the university's birthright for a mess of corporate pottage.
appreciate this reflection as it is clear you actually care - far too many "takes" on this stuff rather than skin in the game and honest reaction
writing has transformed my life and I think you are spot on - I was TAing a class at my business school early on after starting my writing journey and was shocked at how bad the writing was (though it was probably the same for me a few years earlier) - it made me realize that we are failing many people in hidden ways
Thank you for expressing our concerns. Unfortunately, I think you are preaching to the choir. Fortunately there are teachers who are passionate about their work and they are the light at the end of the tunnel.
For over twenty years, I have been in the education realm, teaching in some capacity. I am not to retirement age yet, but I am burned out beyond belief. Simply exhausted. You make some great points here. Thank you for sharing!
Irina, I am deeply moved by what you have to say. I am a former special ed teacher and college lecturer in professional writing. I left teaching in 2016 before this AI insanity began. I have a good friend who still teaches at the university, and she is heartsick over the kind of work her students are turning in---"Their papers are lousy," she told me. "This final time, many of them did the papers themselves, but since they hadn't done any of the readings, the quality is dismal." She also shared a presentation by a colleague who used a chatbot to load up her entire course and encourages the students to use AI. I don't know how any person who values learning and what education --in some corners--is supposed to mean--can deliberately turn to a chatbot and call that a college-level course. I'm glad I left teaching, but I am deeply afraid for our world. What would our kids do to survive if they were prisoners? They would have no resources if their screens were taken away.
I trained as a journal therapist and learned about Pennebaker's work with deep journaling a long time ago. I have also personally found his techniques to be very helpful in processing past harmful experiences. Just as an aside.....
Thank you for all of this, Ann. I agree completely. And if you were ever willing to share your experiences with Pennebaker's work, either here or privately, I'd be very curious. I do go back to morning pages now and then and they help a lot, but haven't done his protocol seriously (only one day).
One problem is that we put a grade on the product so when we say “the product isn’t the point” it’s a little hypocritical. If we must grade, grade the process.
Some fine thoughts here, finely expressed, too. It's the new dark ages, and lovers of the good, true and beautiful need to huddle around whatever valiant flames they can find. This essay is one of those flames.
I think this is just an expansion of what is lacking and dangerous in all the online tools we have to help us with knowledge.... I think the problem is that we are too lazy to teach creativity... the AI revolution could actually be a freeing thing as the only professions left are those that use creativity or teach creativity. making new things, teaching how to make or study new things. the problem with the teaching part is that the main necessary compnoant is to have small classes with many teachers. If you let me teach only classes of 10 students from kindergarden to post doc I could make sure that no one was sucked in and that they learned how to think and make. but we don't want to pay for that.
I think that's exactly right, and of course part of the reason many educators are either not catching this stuff or letting it pass is workload.
It’s a combination of workload and pressure for success rates. As faculty, we’ve been made completely responsible for whether or not a student passes, not their effort or preparedness, not their access to transportation or food or housing or materials, not our workload or physical or mental inability to connect with hundreds of students each semester.
Thank you for this piece. I’ve been collecting essays to share out with my colleagues. It’s difficult to find the time to write my own thoughts because when I find myself with any spare time, I’m so emotionally and intellectually burnt out a nap or mindlessly scrolling is all I can muster.
I hear you, and in that light, it's not so surprising that I was only able to gather my thoughts enough to write this while sick.
"not their access to transportation or food or housing or materials"
When I was teaching the university started a food bank for students who had trouble getting enough to eat, so I came to think that part of students' poor performance might be due to this or similar issues.
When I raised this idea with my colleagues the reply was a resounding "Nah, they're just lazy."
As a novelist and writing teacher, I am sorry to say that AI is coming for creative writing classrooms, too. Absolutely no question. Our creative professions are not being preserved; why would they be? There are active efforts to replace creatives in all fields with AI, including writers of fiction, poetry, screenplays. The tech is getting very sophisticated and it will keep getting better. The fact that a machine can't express or feel, but only replicate and recombine, will not matter to most people. After a generation, the ones who do care may not be able to tell the difference.
Just to follow up on this--I asked a creative writing professor and AI has absolutely become a problem for her! This fall she's going to try using Rumi drafting tech software, which surveils and records the students' keystrokes and software use while they write. In other words, freaking spyware. This just sounds straight up dystopian to me (Rumi!!), but so far no one has thought of a better solution. At her university, freshman comp now includes an intro unit on "ethical AI use" that teaches them how to use AI "only for generating ideas." Only!! I think my jaw hit the floor on that one. I can't imagine writing a novel while someone looks over my shoulder at every single letter I type; I can't imagine wanting to outsource my creativity to a machine; I can't imagine any of this. To professors who've been dealing with this problem for years now, I must look extremely naive.
So timely and well-articulated, everything said here is what I want to say too! Thank you!
Jacques Barzun, in _Science: The Glorious Entertainment_, observes that "a convenience is by definition a poor substitute." And when your work is to cultivate natural intelligence, artificial intelligence is as valuable as plastic flowers planted in a cornfield.
I feel your pain Irina. Writing is thinking. Full stop. That's what we give up when we abandon ourselves to AI.
Hi Irina, Thanks for your trenchant thoughts here. It is interesting that both Pennebaker (whom you cite) and you spent many formative years at Southern Methodist University where some of us remain—and we celebrate as well as worry about all academic uses of AI. This is exam time in lots of American colleges and many of us here have recoiled from AI cheating and banned computer-aided exams, returning to handwritten ”blue books.” One irony is that we have difficulty deciphering our students’ handwriting.
Indeed, Bonnie! That drawer full of LAMY cartridges and fountain pens is a beautiful sight; the handwriting of the vast majority of my students is not. What's interesting, though, is that they are fascinated by my fountain pens and would, I think, take great pride in developing a better script if given the chance, just as many of them do seem exhilarated by the chance to write creatively. They have no real love for digital slop; it's just what's being sprayed at them. And that makes me angry.
I just spent eight and a half years completing (more to the point, and something I struggle to say with my full chest but should actually be proud to express--EARNING) a PhD because of the joy found in the struggle of grappling with ideas, challenging myself, and learning ever more, all in pursuit of feeling like I know less in the end than when I started (the more you know, the less you know, right?). What I learned from teaching undergrads is that this was already lost thanks to All Children Left Behind and Race to the Bottom, so really this new form of cheating and outsourcing thinking comes as no surprise when you consider that today's college students had K-12 teachers who were forbidden (because let's be honest--it was not the teachers' choice to be beholden to capitalistic test companies and governmental bodies that know nothing about pedagogy or learning) to teach them to think, grapple, or wallow in uncertainty and curiosity. I don't know how we come out of this without essentially restarting society because this endumbening is so richly rewarded now, and by the time this generation of students realizes what they've lost, they will have also lost all the resources and teachers who could have helped them get it back.
A crushing essay and a reminder that my nostalgia for the job I left four years ago is truly quixotic. My dream job existed for about 8-10 of the 16 years I spent in academe. The humiliations and futilities that pushed me out are worse than ever.
I expected more of your rage to be directed at administrators and executives who explicitly push for AI to be integrated into curriculum. They have indeed sold the university's birthright for a mess of corporate pottage.
appreciate this reflection as it is clear you actually care - far too many "takes" on this stuff rather than skin in the game and honest reaction
writing has transformed my life and I think you are spot on - I was TAing a class at my business school early on after starting my writing journey and was shocked at how bad the writing was (though it was probably the same for me a few years earlier) - it made me realize that we are failing many people in hidden ways
I have a hunch there aren't any 'more expensive, fancy LLMs' that actually get the research correct 100% of the time. They're all hack jobs.
Thank you for expressing our concerns. Unfortunately, I think you are preaching to the choir. Fortunately there are teachers who are passionate about their work and they are the light at the end of the tunnel.
For over twenty years, I have been in the education realm, teaching in some capacity. I am not to retirement age yet, but I am burned out beyond belief. Simply exhausted. You make some great points here. Thank you for sharing!
I hear you. It's so incredibly dispiriting.
Great. Thanks for writing this.
Irina, I am deeply moved by what you have to say. I am a former special ed teacher and college lecturer in professional writing. I left teaching in 2016 before this AI insanity began. I have a good friend who still teaches at the university, and she is heartsick over the kind of work her students are turning in---"Their papers are lousy," she told me. "This final time, many of them did the papers themselves, but since they hadn't done any of the readings, the quality is dismal." She also shared a presentation by a colleague who used a chatbot to load up her entire course and encourages the students to use AI. I don't know how any person who values learning and what education --in some corners--is supposed to mean--can deliberately turn to a chatbot and call that a college-level course. I'm glad I left teaching, but I am deeply afraid for our world. What would our kids do to survive if they were prisoners? They would have no resources if their screens were taken away.
I trained as a journal therapist and learned about Pennebaker's work with deep journaling a long time ago. I have also personally found his techniques to be very helpful in processing past harmful experiences. Just as an aside.....
Thank you for all of this, Ann. I agree completely. And if you were ever willing to share your experiences with Pennebaker's work, either here or privately, I'd be very curious. I do go back to morning pages now and then and they help a lot, but haven't done his protocol seriously (only one day).
Great piece! Thank you for being an advocate of the mind!
One problem is that we put a grade on the product so when we say “the product isn’t the point” it’s a little hypocritical. If we must grade, grade the process.