Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

College professors and other educators continue to struggle needlessly with writing assignments and AI-regurgitated text.

Here we have yet another story of a teacher with the best of intentions trying to have students write papers in the era of the current slate of AI systems that pump out text at the push of a button. Alas, some of these teachers with good intentions just don’t get it.

The writing assignment is a waste of time. It is needless. Admit that and omit it.

Assignment: research the writing of the Declaration of Independence or the use of robotic technology in delicate surgery or some other topic. Write a ten-page report on the topic.

Good grief. That is a mechanical exercise. And some folks are surprised that we have built machines that can do the mechanical exercise. Why don’t you just have the students look up the times tables and report on them? Needless. Machines can spew the answers.

Counter: learners should be able to write. I agree. Let’s have them write. AI slop? Come on. Think.

Assignment: watch this movie. Tell me what you think of it. Tell me something that only you know down deep inside you. What person in your life comes to mind while watching this movie? What did that person do to you? No one else has the answer you have. Write it.

That is not a mechanical exercise. We can’t build a machine that knows the deep core of beliefs of an individual.

Tell me something that only you know.

Another counter: that is okay for the fine arts. What about technology?

Assignment: perform an experiment that only you have performed—no one else has done this. Only you know what you did. Only you know the results. Write about that.

Tell me something that only you know.