If You’re Still Fighting AI, You’re Already Behind

Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, in an interview with The Guardian, says that artificial intelligence will be “10 times bigger than the Industrial Revolution — and maybe 10 times faster.”

I’m an English professor, and educators everywhere are gearing up right now for another academic year, already fretting over the spread and use of AI in academic settings. My fellow English colleagues are preparing syllabi with various stern statements about the use of AI, trying to figure out how to police it — how to make sure students are doing the writing instead of AI doing it for them.

This is a legitimate concern. If you’re not doing the writing, you’re not learning anything about writing. We learn by doing, by confronting challenges and figuring out novel ways to overcome them.

In writing circles, writing teaches writing, not professors. Teachers set up the circumstances which allow students the opportunity to learn something on their own, if, that is, they engage with writing.

But AI removes those opportunities by doing everything for the student.

No pain (or struggle) means no gain (or learning).

And all of this is true.

Believe me, the whole profession is asking itself — what are we good for . . …