ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Writing
How ChatGPT and other AI systems may ruin the ability to write (and think).
Key points
ChatGPT and other AI-assisted writing softwares have arrived. And by all accounts, they are surprisingly good.
From the perspective of writing education, this kind of software is more than a little problematic.
This software may well reduce writing, communication, and thinking abilities dramatically in future generations.
tumisu / Pixabay
The potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to revolutionize writing education is immense. AI can use natural language processing (NLP) to help students analyze their writing in ways that teachers have never been able to do before. AI systems can evaluate structure, grammar, tone and semantic meaning of content to provide personalized feedback to students. In addition, AI systems can quickly scan content for plagiarism and other errors, enabling students to self-correct in real-time.
AI can also be used as an effective tool for making writing more interactive and engaging for students. AI-enabled systems can make writing assignments more tailored to individual student needs and interests. For example, AI-enabled essay writing platforms can generate real-time prompts and guide students through the writing process. AI can even help generate writing assignments that are adapted to the individual’s skill level and interests. For example, AI can generate writing topics based on the student’s previous writing samples or past topics that the student has enjoyed writing about.
AI can also help with assessment and grading, shifting the focus from correcting errors to fostering better writing skills. By leveraging AI technologies such as machine learning, AI-enabled writing assessment tools can automatically evaluate and grade essays more accurately and efficiently than manual grading. AI systems can also provide students with detailed feedback on their writing, which can help them further improve their writing skills.
Overall, the potential of AI to transform writing education is immense.
Guess what? I didn’t write any of the above! That was fully written by a robot via the newly developed artificial intelligence software, ChatGPT . Using this software, I requested a 200-word essay on how AI technologies will affect writing education in the future.
The robot wrote that piece in about 20 seconds.
While the answer is reasonably well-written and on-point—and while this new technology is, well, actually pretty amazing at what it does, along with educators all over the world, I see some pretty glaring problems with this software.
Interestingly, when I asked the same software to write a 200-word essay regarding how AI relates to plagiarism, the result it gave me was total garbage—advertisements typed up by the robot, in fact. I tried this on three different occasions and the same outcome happened each time. I am not sure if this fact is somehow intentional or not. But it certainly is noteworthy. It comes across to me as if the developers of this software designed the software to not broach that particular subject. This said, as an educator who mentors students in writing extensively, I see this issue as more than a little problematic.
How chatGPT Generally Works
It seems that chatGPT has emerged on the world scene in the blink of an eye. So many folks reading this may not yet be aware of what this software does. Basically, by using extraordinary power in quickly searching content online, coupled with surprisingly good grammatical and writing skills, this software can write original content on pretty much anything. In pretty much any style.
You can ask it to write a 500-word essay, for instance, on the neurobiology of human emotion. Or the main themes of the works of Charles Dickens. Or the history of evolutionary scholarship. Or…well…just about anything.
