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CURTIS NEHRING BLISS's avatar

When this came out a few months ago, it was the first piece on writing with AI that i read that engaged with the topic in a nuanced and multifaceted way. Having just returned from a week-long Academic Writing in the Age of AI workshop at Bard College, I took a stab at the topic myself: part experiment, part grief memoir, part genre theory, part teaching mediation, this is what I came up with: https://open.substack.com/pub/curtisnehringbliss/p/a-last-waltz-a-new-genre

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Pete's avatar

I'm a veteran teacher who believes passionately in the value of being able to read complex texts and to write well.

I also live in reality.

We are transitioning to an audio/video world and those of us who are desperately fighting it are doomed to disappointment.

To be clear, I'm not happy about it, but I also have learned to choose my battles carefully and use my time effectively.

I predict that within ten years writing will transition to something akin to carpentry - something a few people choose to master, and they will produce high quality products for those willing to pay a premium. However, the majority of people will be happy with the mass-produced products.

I see writing becoming an elective course instead of the cornerstone of core classes. I think we will be spending time showing students how to effectively use AI and question/check accuracy.

To counter this, I suggest we return to the old-fashioned board where students will be orally tested by an instructor for smaller assessments and by a group of instructors for the major assessments.

We are in what I call the "AOL Dial-up Phase" of this technology and those fighting the tide remind me of the nuns I had in 2nd grade who thought the emergence of calculators was a sign of the apocalypse. AI (which I'm following very closely) is making huge leaps on a weekly basis. It's unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime.

From what I can see, schools are not responding quickly enough to what is happening. Perhaps they are assuming that the changes will progress gradually as they did with the advent of the internet in the mid-90s. They are sadly mistaken.

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