When OpenAI launched its new artificial intelligence program, ChatGPT, in late 2022, educators started to worry. ChatGPT can generate human-appearing text.
How can teachers determine if students are cheating on writing assignments using chatbot-generated language?
As a linguist who studies technology’s impact on the way people read, write, and think, I believe there are other equally pressing issues besides fraud.
These include whether AI threatens students’ ability to write in general, the value of writing as a process, and the importance of considering writing as a means of thinking.
As part of research for my new book on the impact of artificial intelligence on human writing, I interviewed young people in the United States and Europe on a range of questions related to these impacts.
They talked about a lot of their concerns about how AI tools could undermine what they do as writers. But, as I mentioned in my book, these fears have been accumulating for a long time.
Users see negative effects:
Tools like ChatGPT are only the latest in a progression of AI programs for editing or generating text. In fact, the potential for AI undermining both writing skills and motivation to do your own composing has been decades in the making.
Spellcheck and now sophisticated grammar and style programs like Grammarly and Microsoft Editor are among the most widely known AI-driven editing tools. Besides correcting spelling and punctuation, they identify grammar issues as well as offer alternative wording.
AI text-generation developments have included autocomplete for online searches and predictive texting.
If you type “Was Rome” into a Google search, you’ll get a list of options like “Was Rome built in one day”. If you type “ple” in a text message, it will prompt you to type “Please” and “plenty”.
These tools infiltrate our writing efforts uninvited, constantly asking us to follow their suggestions.
Young people surveyed highly rated AI for helping with spelling and word completion, but also cited negative effects.
As one survey participant put it, “One day you will lose your ability to spell if you rely on predictive text [programs].” Another observed that “Spellcheck and AI software … can … be used by people who want to take an easier way out.”
One respondent mentioned laziness when relying on predictive texting: “It’s OK when I am feeling particularly lazy.”
Personal expression diminished:
AI tools can also affect a person’s writing voice. One person in my survey said that with predictive texting, “[I] don’t feel I wrote it.”
A high school student in Britain echoed the same concern about individual writing style when describing Grammarly:
“Grammarly can remove students’ artistic voice…. Instead of using your own unique writing style, Grammarly can take your style out of your students by suggesting drastic changes to their work.”
In a similar vein, the philosopher Evan Selinger was concerned that predictive texts diminish the power of writing as a form of mental activity and personal expression.
“By encouraging us not to think too deeply about horses, predictive technology may slightly change the way we interact with each other,” Selinger writes. “[We] give other people more algorithms and less ourselves. … [A]tautomation… It can interfere with our thoughts.
In illiterate societies, writing has long been recognized as a way to help people think. Many quote writer Flannery O’Connor.
Numerous other prominent writers, from William Faulkner to Joan Didion, have also expressed this sentiment. When AI text generation writes for us, it reduces our ability to solve problems on our own.
One of the terrible results of using a program like ChatGPT to generate language is that the text is grammatically perfect.
Finished. It turns out that the absence of errors is a sign that the words were likely written by an AI rather than a human, as even experienced writers and editors make mistakes. Human writing is a process. We question what we originally wrote, we rewrite it, and sometimes we start over.
Problems at School:
School Writing assignments ideally require constant dialogue between teacher and student. Discuss what the student wants to write about.
Share your initial sketches and leave comments. Then it was time for the student to reconsider and revise. However, these practices are often not. Most teachers don’t have time for co-editing and teaching roles.
Moreover, they may lack either the interest or the necessary skills, or both. Conscientious students sometimes take part of the course themselves, as professional writers usually do.
But with the temptation to rely on text editing and creation tools like Grammarly and ChatGPT, it’s all too easy for people to substitute off-the-shelf technical deliverables with opportunities to think and learn.
Educators are brainstorming how to effectively use AI writing technology. Some point to the potential of AI to start thinking or collaborating. Prior to the advent of ChatGPT, older versions of the same basic program, GPT-3, were licensed from commercial companies such as Sudowrite.
Users can type a phrase or sentence and then ask the program to input more words, potentially stimulating the writer’s creativity.
Disappearance of Ownership:
However, there is a slippery slope between collaboration and infringement. Writer Jennifer Lepp said that with her growing reliance on Sudowrite, the resulting text “felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore.
Looking back at my writing, I felt very uncomfortable not being able to speak or think.” far fewer than the authors.
As the technology becomes more powerful and pervasive, schools will want to teach students the pros and cons of generative AI.
But with the lure of efficiency, it’s hard to resist relying on AI to refine your writing assignments or do most of your writing. Spelling, grammar and autocomplete programs have already paved the way.
The human writing process:
Asked ChatGPT if this threatens people’s motivation to write. Bot Response: “There will always be a demand for creative and original content that requires the unique perspective and insight of a human writer.
added: “Writing serves multiple purposes beyond creating content, such as self-expression, communication, and personal growth, and even if certain types of writing can be automated, it can still motivate people to write.” I am encouraged that the program seems to recognize its limitations.
I hope teachers and students do too. The purpose of completing written assignments should go beyond submitting work for evaluation. Writing should be a journey, not a destination.
Originally published at https://businessdor.com on February 17, 2023.
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