AI – The Death of Writing and Thinking

When I retired from education, AI generated writing was beginning to be prevalent in schools. Students were beginning to submit AI writing as their own, but it was not a rampant problem. However, over the last five years, AI generated writing has taken a strong hold. As I evaluate student essays from across the country, the trend is alarming with students as young as 6^th grade taking the easy way out when it comes to writing. The higher the grade level, the more AI writing you see. One group of high school freshmen essays I evaluated had 50% of the responses either partially or fully written by AI (75/150 essays).

Some people will read this and think, “What is the big deal? AI makes writing easier, so why not use it?” I agree, AI can be useful, and I use it when I have long resumes to write and when I need fresh ideas. BUT, I already know how to write well, and I can edit the AI writing to fit my needs. Children in elementary, middle, and high school have not learned those editing skills. They accept the AI generated writing as is without evaluating it to see if fits their needs. Additionally, writing allows you to process the information you learned – internalizing it. If a student lets a computer write about a topic they are supposed to be learning, then the computer is doing the learning instead of the student.  

With the trend I am seeing, in just a few years we will have generations of students who cannot write their own original ideas. We will have generations of students coming out of high school who cannot think independently or function without a computer doing the work for them. AI will be the death of writing and thinking.

So, what can be done to help students utilize AI in a way to support writing and thinking instead of replacing them? Teachers need training on how to recognize AI generated writing, and they need to learn how to incorporate AI usage and evaluation in the classroom. Students need to be taught how to use AI writing appropriately AND how to evaluate and edit the AI writing.

AI is here to stay. Refusing to accept that is foolish, but it would be just as foolish to let AI replace writing and independent thinking. There needs to be a balance taught throughout the school system so that students will enter the workforce or college with a strong foundation to succeed while using AI to support not replace their abilities.