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Well, I had a few more thoughts after yesterday’s post, and they’re a bit on the discursive side, so pour yourself a glass of iced tea or your choice of adult beverage and bear with me.
One of the biggest challenges facing higher education right now is the extent to which every discipline in the humanities uses writing both as a way to train students in thinking, and to make sure that they’re actually taking time to absorb the content. In my university teaching days, I assigned reaction papers, summary papers, short arguments, essays on literary techniques, and so on, and so forth. Those always ended up having a dual purpose. They forced my students to crack open the texts they were supposed to be reading, but they also exposed all of the thinking problems: fuzzy connections, lack of understanding, the inability to know when you’ve proved your point, the lack of skill in using resources properly.
At least at the moment, we can’t continue to assign those kinds of papers. Yes, they can be done in class, with laptops closed and smartphones powered down, but they will be shorter (that’s not a bad thing), less complex (that’s not a good thing) and, more problematically, will take up the class time that used to be available for discussion, questions and answers, in-person face-to-face explanations.
You know, teaching.
I actually think writing will survive. There’s a building body of evidence suggesting that AI-generated texts are already falling into a “training loop” —meaning that AI learns by harvesting prose online it, and the more online prose is actually produced by AI, the more AI is just reproducing itself and becoming more and more distinctively AI. Check out
reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/how-ai-generated-prose-diverges-human-writing-and-why-it-...,
and also wapo.st/4e2mXyR,
for more on this phenomenon.
There’s also the imagination problem. Ultimately, AI works on ideas that are already present in the world, combining and recombining them. Yes, so do all writers. I was startled, recently, to reread a novel I first inhaled when I was a teenager and had thoroughly forgotten—and to find there an entire plot strand that I’d reproduced in my current fiction project. My subconscious had been quite busy.
But there is still an indefinitable element to human imagination that hasn’t yet appeared in AI-generated topics and plots. Human-generated plots and scenarios are unexpected. AI plots and scenarios are still least-common-denominator driven. For more on this, check out
www.nytimes.com/2026/05/27/opinion/writing-creativity-ai.html?unlocked_article_code=1.pVA.rwJt.OS...
and
arxiv.org/abs/2604.03136
I particularly like this conclusion, for what it’s worth:
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A compact set of 30 core narrative features captures much of this signal: AI stories over-explain themes and favor tidy, single-track plots while human stories frame protagonist' choices as more morally ambiguous and have increased temporal complexity. Per-model fingerprint features enable six-way attribution: for example, Claude produces notably flat event escalation, GPT over-indexes on dream sequences, and Gemini defaults to external character description. We find that AI-generated stories cluster in a shared region of narrative space, while human-authored stories exhibit greater diversity. More broadly, these results suggest that differences in underlying narrative construction, not just writing style, can be used to separate human-written original works from AI-generated fiction.
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That plot strand that I reproduced from the novel I read when I was thirteen? It was altered and reshaped, not by an amalgam of other stories, but by my own experience of growing up on a subsistence farm, of a disastrous first romantic relationship (yeah, yeah, we all had one if we’re flesh and blood), of the realization that my muscles were inadequate for a physical task.
So far, that’s what will still hold “human-written original works” apart from AI-generated prose.
So, I remain cautiously optimistic about the future of “human-written” words.
I’m less optimistic about teaching.
In our current university system, we spend 3 50-minute periods or 2 90-minute periods teaching each week. If we have to use most of that to watch our students write, so that we’re sure they’re not using AI to teach…we have become glorified hall monitors, not mentors or disciplers. What time do we have for actual teaching?
My cautious optimism on this front is that we may yet adapt (humans are good at that) and find a way around the problem. My pessimism is that this won’t happen soon. Change is at LEAST a decade away, and that’s being crazy optimistic.
All four of my children got through university before the current AI explosion. If I had a teenager now, I’m not sure I’d put them into a freshman class at college. Vocational training, a day job, and evenings with an intelligent book club might be a better option.
StoryScope: Investigating idiosyncrasies in AI fiction
arxiv.org
As AI-generated fiction becomes increasingly prevalent, questions of authorship and originality are becoming central to how written work is evaluated. While most existing work in this space focuses on identifying surface-level signatures of AI writing, we ask instead whether AI-generated stories can...3 days ago
I really appreciate all the info you’ve shared above. I despair the potential loss of lecture/ discussion time. I’d hope maybe colleges will go to a supervised “work time” for tests and essays if necessary, with a TA, and let the classroom time still exist, as my young adults have had such valuable professor relationships that wouldn’t occur without this space. These have been invaluable for their personal and professional growth and opportunities. For this same reason, I also caution against your statement about not attending college (while of course trades and such are immensely valuable so not knocking that at all!!) But because many who might be your followers might have heard the message that “college will destroy your values”, or the the “distrust of certain institutions” mood of many in the country- so your comment may add to that message- and deprive students of the incredible growth and opportunity that comes from college studies. Just some alternate thoughts 🙂 Of course college is only one of many wonderful paths and many thrive better in a different path, i just don’t want to see the college / liberal arts path disparaged, but rather taken seriously by students and faculty willing to do the hard work if it’s the best path for them.
Recording studios sample pianos key-by-key to produce excellent and largely convincing digital piano libraries, but they still struggle to capture sympathetic resonance: the effect all the strings have on each other in a particular performance. I expect AI will remain unable to predict the human imagination in an analogous way to a much greater degree.
I have an 11 year old, so I have a few more years to see how this shakes out. I think your thoughts are sound, and we will definitely consider vocational training, but I'm a little troubled that there seems to be a hard push for no college/ go to vocational school/ get a trade that I feel uneasy about. I know the world is changing, and I think weighing all kinds of opportunities is good, but I keep on wondering who benefits from this narrative, and are they trying to hoard education and opportunities for themselves/ their family/ the in crowd? There are careers that will still (at least for the foreseeable future) require college degrees. Anyways, just my two cents. I'm really glad we aren't at a decision point now.
I so agree with your last thought about sending kids to college right now. I feel guilty for not encouraging my oldest to look at trades, he was a straight A student.....of course college seemed like the next step. What are your thoughts about the reversed classroom model for classes with a lot of writing? Taped lecture at home is the homework, writing is in class with the teacher available for discussion. Lots of pros and cons - but I'd love to read your take.
I really appreciate your insights. My oldest is through college, thankfully. However my 3rd daughter just graduated from high school and my son is 12. AI is everywhere. My daughter did not want to join the college application chaos. She has been working for the last two years and decided to move an hour away from home to attend a great community college, found a new job, a roommate and an apartment. She is going to give it a year and see if she likes her new path.
I have 2 kids in college and a third in high school- all homeschooled with a combo of programs. Neither of my college kids have tried to use AI for their work, and they don’t write things that could be written by AI. You and Julie Bogart convinced me to let my kids write weird stuff- that college professors were bored with reading the same essays over and over. So my kids write analogies in their papers that no one had ever thought of. They actually have LD issues, so they get to type even if the class writes by hand. But none of them wrote full essays until 11th or 12th grade- so they weren’t burnt out on writing when they started college. They weren’t looking to just get the minimum because they didn’t know how to do that. They entered college ready to learn, not worn out. I think it matters a whole lot what kids do before college. My public high school taught me to make cookie cutter essays AI could write. My kids don’t know how to write an essay that looks like every one else’s.
I've been playing with writing random stuff...short fiction, long fiction, just fluff stuff on various AI to see what it does. It uses the same names over and over. It even points out that it's using the same name...and it'll have like five characters named something like Marcus and even point out the absurdity of these characters all coincidentally having the same name, and say they aren't related. The cadence of dialogue is...strange, like it gets into patterns that are so similar. It has no nuance and characters with any neurodivergent traits all sound like computers reciting stats. It repeats lines over and over. I don't know how many times it spits out, "We're going to figure this out. Together." It's an inside joke at this point. It lacks genuine wit and sarcasm. It has characters do things that are anatomically impossible like lean over to grab something as the same instant of also shifting gears while driving with their "other hand". It forgets about things that happened and were major plot points in the previous chapter. It does things in an order that makes no sense. I am getting my kiddo interested in writing with it, though. We're getting some typing skills in, we're working on a pokemon fanfiction this summer, and we're going for walks and talking over the story and the character development and the story arc and how we're going to break up chapters. Once we get something generated we're going to edit it together. So we're workshopping AI generated Pokemon/Mario fanfics with a reluctant writer, which is a fun summer project.
I have three kids, and I am a High School visual arts teacher. University degrees are still very valuable. My youngest will be a Senior in High School and is interested in Computer Science Engineering. As we have explored college programs, I have been impressed by the amount of deep theory, skills and information he will be introduced to laying a foundation for a future career. Within all of the engineering programs are mandatory paid internships. Genius! My middle son is in a large state university, (Louisville) because that is what we could afford. All of the private liberal arts school were way out of our price range. He is a Busness and Marketing Major who wants to create community through business. Some of his base classes have been a bit boring, but is an Honors students. These classes are small discussion based classes and are phenomenal! He is basically getting a liberal arts degree. I find the program intriguing. My daughter just graduated from a small liberal Arts University, Asbury. with a Visual Arts and Communication Degree she wants to be involved in film and/ or Theatre production design- sets & costume. He program was more technical, but also had many discussion based theory classes. Almost all Essays were written in class. Professors are using more time in class for discussion and writing. Maybe Writing labs are where students need to have to write essays now, so technology can be monitorsed? I do see many aspects of a traditional technical school being used in Universities now. And do see the need for Universities to adapt, but they are still needed to prepare our future thinkers and doers.
I think this opens room for the non writers as well. My kid may not go to college because of a written expression disability. Orally though? Whew the things that come out of that kid. It’s not always been the case that actual writing proved learning. And realistically, very few careers require it often. What if we establish learning centers where debate, oral exams, portfolio projects, actual work products and more were the “proof”? We might build skills actually needed in the world- how to absorb information, hear varied opinions, and form new, actionable thoughts. There is always room for writers, folks who can notate all the big ideas floating in the room and make them into something shareable. But perhaps the death of the chapter summary will make room for the thinkers who can’t keep up with the output demands. Maybe exams come back a bit. Or whole new categories return… like scribes and others. I hope in the end we evolve back into a model that has a path for more learners.
Bookmarked. I appreciate you, Susan.
Excellent Reuters article. Thanks for sharing.
I'm not sure how many more of these pieces about AI influences on education I'm going to post, because at this point, I think the conclusion is both clear and obscure.
Clear: Our current high school curricula and college liberal arts degrees cannot continue to be administered as they've been for the last century.
Obscure: What we'll replace them with.
Lila Shroff's recent Atlantic essay encapsulates the problem.
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If at first teachers worried about students using chatbots to write essays, now new agentic tools such as Claude Code are allowing students to outsource even more of their work to the machines. Need to take an online math quiz? Write a biology-lab report? Create a PowerPoint presentation for history class? AI can do all of this and more. One high schooler recently told me that he struggles to think of a single assignment that AI wouldn’t be able to do for him.
As a measure of just how good AI has become at schoolwork, consider a new bot called Einstein. Several weeks ago, the tool went viral with big claims: “Einstein checks for new assignments and knocks them out before the deadline,” a website advertising the bot explained. All that a student had to do was hand over their credentials for Canvas, the popular learning-management platform, and Einstein promised to do the rest...
When I first came across Einstein, I was skeptical: Flashy AI demos have a way of overpromising and under-delivering. So I decided to test the tool out for myself. Because I’m not a college student, I enrolled in a free online introductory-statistics class. The course website explained that the class was self-paced and that it could help undergraduates, postgraduates, medical students, and even lecturers build up basic statistical knowledge. I set the bot loose, and in less than an hour, Einstein had worked through all eight modules and seven quizzes. There were some hiccups—the bot took one quiz 15 times—but it ultimately earned a perfect score in the class. As for me? I hardly so much as read the course website.
...Einstein does seem to be an indicator of where AI in the classroom is headed. The latest bots have massive context windows, meaning that students can feed in mountains of course content such as syllabi, lecture slides, and practice exams. Today’s agentic tools can complete all kinds of tasks, such as participating in online discussion forums and taking notes on recorded lectures without student intervention. According to one analysis, the percentage of students middle-school age or older who self-reported using AI for help with homework climbed by 14 points from May to December of last year...
Instructors, as I have previously written, are also using plenty of AI. Canvas recently introduced a new AI teaching agent designed to save instructors time on “low educational value tasks” such as organizing online-course modules and adjusting assignment due dates. “Faculty are using AI tools both for instructional purposes, for building course materials, but they’re also starting to play around with generative AI to actually grade and assess the learning,” Marc Watkins, a researcher at the University of Mississippi who studies AI and education, told me. He gave a hypothetical: “I could set my agent up, open it up in my course, go out on campus to walk across campus to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks,” he said. By the time he returned, 15 minutes later, all of the essays would be graded, and “bespoke personal feedback” would be sent out to each student. AI can save teachers time—that same grading takes him 10 or 12 hours, Watkins estimated—but in the process, the technology threatens the relationship between students and teachers that is core to education. “That’s really scary,” he said.
Most people I spoke with seemed unhappy with the current trajectory of bots in the classroom. Even as growing numbers of students are using the technology, a majority believe that the more they use AI for classwork, the more it will harm their critical-thinking skills...Some educators are worried about “a fully automated loop”—as the Modern Language Association put it last fall—in which AI-generated assignments are completed and graded by AI agents. Instructors have taken to analyzing students’ Google Docs history to make sure they are typing responses live instead of pasting in text from a bot. But of course, an AI work-around exists for that too: A new suite of human-typing simulators promises to generate text to make it look as if a student is writing in real time when, really, the work is being done by AI.
www.theatlantic.com
Education is on the verge of becoming fully automated.4 days ago
Seems like there was a good reason for oral exams and hand-written in-class essays.
Why is all the talk and worry about students and not including the role of teachers increasingly being outsourced to AI? They are using chat to write assignments, tests, emails, letters of recommendation, sort and grade papers. (note this is based on teachers outwardly admitting this, not just on suspected incidents) Students are noticing and feeling very conflicted about the double standard, not to mention declining quality of interactions and learning experiences!
So basically, AI will be grading other AI.🤦♀️
I think instruction will flip from spending class time in lecture with assignments completed after class to lectures online and using class time to complete assignments. This of course brings its own problems, but having an instructor available for feedback as one completes an assignment could be very helpful.
In class assignments, no advance notice, no phones, no computers, good old pencil and paper.
How do we incorporate AI without eliminating deeper thought? That's the threat, right? Maybe we treat AI as we would junk food.
My daughter’s in college. Even knowing the programs are often wrong, she uses AI to make sure her paper doesn’t come back as AI. She’s almost paranoid about it.
I do handwritten exams and have also done interviews… but I am still trying to figure out how to teach skills in what research papers used to teach: finding and reading sources, judging their quality, synthesizing info from them to find a conclusion and articulating how that fits together— without using research papers, which can be replicated with AI and even when I know they were, I cannot ironclad prove it. How does one teach THAT set of skills? Or is it just unnecessary to have them? I hope not; those are skills that I think ultimately make a wiser human.
I think it's interesting that the word "assess" comes from the Latin meaning "to sit beside." We really do have to "sit beside" our students to truly know where they are in their learning. Do you know what AI can't do? Sit in a seat in my classroom with a pencil in hand and write in a blue book. Sometimes the best way forward is to turn around... the only answer I have is to think about how my teachers and professors assessed me many years ago: in person.
One high school in my area has gone to pencil and paper for writing assignments. Done in class.
I spent this past year teaching composition courses and was talking with a friend and co-teacher about a common assignment we use, which is a scavenger hunt for finding sources and developing keywords. When we were discussing this, a student of hers came to our shared office to talk about an assigned paper and the scavenger hunt assignment came up; the student didn’t complete it because the university library had implemented an AI search bot that developed keywords, research questions, and source summaries for you. We just looked at each other - the skills that assignment was meant to teach were rendered useless by the university.
Have you read Dr Cooney Horvath's THE DIGITAL DELUSION? From an academic, this book is accessible and uses the research to back the claims in ways not done to this point. It highlights current research that show what is best and highlights the LACK OF REPLICATED RESEARCH for things being used in schools at the moment claiming to be effective. Between that and the books that Jonathon Haidt has done, and the articles you've highlighted, I'm starting to see the voices sounding the alarms in academia and it is nice to not feel alone!!!!
In the course of our daily homeschooling, my kids and I use AI periodically, and overall, I think it has been a great benefit. It hasn’t affected us negatively at all, and I see no reason why it should.
Tough question: as we head into a new era of our interactions with knowledge, who is the problem? The teachers or the students? When the printing press came out it was the polymath or the teachers who didn't like the new invention. The students had more resources. More books was good for them. But teachers would become more obsolete. Yes, we do still have teachers despite the increase in knowledge, and we still will after this shift. Homeschoolers of all people should be excited to see the public system facing a moment in time that will force them to change. Classical educators also should be celebrating. That is the only form of education we currently have that will endure the new AI era of education. We've got this!!
My son and I just had a conversation about this the other night, he is a rising senior in college. He said that some classes now have a standard that when they run a paper through an AI checker it has to be below a certain percentage of AI generated. My son loves to write and is a natural writer. He is so frustrated because names of journals come up as AI because you have to type it exactly correct and that is easily searched by the program as being copied. Same with quotes that are required to use and correctly cited. Even a common phrase you might use because the AI program can see it is a phrase a lot of papers have used before. He now spends more time checking and then changing his own words so it meets those percentages.
Plato and the Academy, walking along the stoa, talking about the different aspects of the number *8* or the meaning of virtue. An idea whose time has come again.
John Warner is also great on the topic of so-called "ai" (large language models, super-fancy autocomplete) and student writing substack.com/@biblioracle
Nathanael Gallagher
That article had a very abrupt ending. Was it written by AI? The audio of the article was AI generated. I'm so concerned about humanity's future...
If I’m paying for a college degree I would expect to pay less if a bot was putting together modules and doing the grading. I doubt colleges are going to discount these degrees, though, and professors aren’t going to accept a pay cut for doing less work.
There wasn’t enough writing going on in highschool before AI When there was an essay required- my kids didn’t have access to a book on essays to read first before they tried to write their own.
At what point are we going to have the discussion that education should no longer be compulsory? If it's all being done by machines in both directions, why bother spending resources on students who have no desire to learn or problem solve? If you don't want to be in school, then don't go.
At this point it seems like students are using AI to complete tasks assigned by teachers using AI. It’s so disheartening. Coming up with ideas yourself is hard, rewarding work. Outsourcing all of that work to AI makes us all dumber. AI is designed to tell you what you want to hear, not help you wrestle with uncomfortable ideas.
Sobering…
It’s so, so disheartening.
