AI tools like ChatGPT are becoming more common in writing, even in academic settings. While some may see this as a concern, AI can be helpful for tasks like generating ideas and refining drafts. However, relying on AI to do the actual writing can take away from key learning opportunities, like understanding the material and growing as a writer. In this op-ed, I’ll explore the pros and cons of AI in academic writing and when it may — or may not — be useful in other contexts.
Full disclosure: I got that introduction from ChatGPT. Could you tell? I fed it this article after I wrote it, and I asked it to write my introduction. And guess what? I've been a Writing Tutor at DePauw for a little more than three semesters now. Sacrilegious, I know. I did have to improve it with some follow-up questions, AI rarely composes writing I like on the first go. Nevertheless, I genuinely believe that using AI to write can be practical and beneficial. It can help with brainstorming, outlining, and editing. It's not all good news for AI, though. Using AI even for the limited purposes I've listed can create larger issues.
Using AI for classroom writing in limited cases has some advantages. If a student has no ideas how to start thinking about a paper, ChatGPT can give them a starting point for research. If the writing context (for example, literary analysis or literature review) is new to them, a student can ask AI for an outline to help them learn the format and organize their paper. AI can also review and discuss the ideas in a paper, supplying feedback that inspires revisions or more research. This feedback can be particularly useful if a deadline looms, and it is unfeasible to reach out to a friend to review your writing.
Having AI write in your place, on the other hand, may disrupt what I see as the two main goals of academic writing. These goals are first to engage with the course material and second to improve as a writer. A student could merely copy and paste an essay prompt into ChatGPT and make trivial edits to fend off AI detection detections, but they would be missing most of the thinking that normally goes into crafting an essay. In this case, the student offloads the work they would have put in grappling with and responding to the prompt. Instead of finding, supporting and defending their argument, they rephrase the argument AI selected for them. Practically speaking, this lack of engagement may erode a student's work ethic and make longer or more complex papers, where generative AI may not be an option, far harder to approach.
More importantly, the use of AI disrupts one of the main learning goals of any liberal arts university: learning how to write and communicate. In its current state, AI is unlikely to give a bad response for an essay, but it is likely to provide one that is generic. And I think that there is not much worse in writing than this blandness. A good writer will excite and enthrall readers, supporting their argument with imagery, puns, humor, allegory and any more rhetorical strategies that are taught in high school English classrooms. Relying on an algorithm will hinder a writer from employing a unique approach or typing a cheeky turn of phrase.
As for non-academic writing, whether AI is beneficial or harmful remains context-dependent. AI writing can save a worker time when writing emails, analyzing data or composing summaries. These cases seem to be non-objectionable, but AI writing has more dubious use cases.
For example, a newspaper that uses AI to compose articles may get more news out faster, but the robotic rush might curb every paper's creativity, spread misinformation and misrepresent sources. As a result, articles risk being bland and repetitive. Another context where using AI may be dubious is for creative writing. If ChatGPT selects a topic, theme or story beat, the piece may be less beautiful, original or authentic than it would have been had the algorithms not been used. AI may be able to provide good ideas for stories, but creative writing risks becoming less creative if you rely on a formula to start the journey.
At the end of the day, AI is a tool, and as such, it is useful only in specific contexts. When brainstorming or outlining, ChatGPT can generate ideas, save time and promote learning. In other cases, such as for composing an entire argument, it could get in the way of engaging with the classes that cost students tons of money, time, and energy. Much like Google or Wikipedia, generative AI will continue to develop, and we will have to learn as individuals how we can best work with it. AI is a tool that only works for certain jobs and part of using AI well is to determine how it can work for you. Doing that means working with AI now — not later.
As ChatGPT itself once told me: In the end, AI is a tool — just don't let it do all the thinking for you, or you might end up writing like, well, a robot.
As a disclaimer, I am not an expert or authority on AI writing for classrooms at DePauw. I encourage any student reading this to make sure that you're following the academic integrity policies of any course you may be a part of. If you're interested in trying an idea I've presented here and are not sure if your professor would be okay with it, talk to them. You may want to inform yourself of how AI tools might use your data, and if the privacy concerns with feeding your writing into a language model concern you.
