I suppose that the debate over ChatGPT and its many successors and copycats will rage on forever. My concern goes back to when laptops began to become prevalent in school, what with autocorrect and seemingly unlimited access to plagiarism bait at the literal tips of one's fingers. The real debate is certainly even older than all that. Simply, why are we teaching fewer and fewer students how to write well? I could barely read by the time I reached the 6th grade, but when I graduated from Mudd, I had learned to overcome my literacy deficit and went on to acquire decent writing skills as one of the greatest assets that I ever gained from my undergraduate education. That skill has grown over the decades, and it wasn't through making all these terse Internet posts. I look at kids today and am truly sickened that we continue to manufacture button pushing dummies (my brother's term so very long ago) at such an alarming rate. The last advice I was ever able to give to a high school student who was trying to impress some UC school with his application essays was to put down the laptop, pick up a pad of paper and a pen, and start writing -- then I would help him with what he wrote. I'm currently working on a friend's screenplay and am about to do just that very thing myself.
I agree with your balance of utility and healthy skepticism.
I suppose that the debate over ChatGPT and its many successors and copycats will rage on forever. My concern goes back to when laptops began to become prevalent in school, what with autocorrect and seemingly unlimited access to plagiarism bait at the literal tips of one's fingers. The real debate is certainly even older than all that. Simply, why are we teaching fewer and fewer students how to write well? I could barely read by the time I reached the 6th grade, but when I graduated from Mudd, I had learned to overcome my literacy deficit and went on to acquire decent writing skills as one of the greatest assets that I ever gained from my undergraduate education. That skill has grown over the decades, and it wasn't through making all these terse Internet posts. I look at kids today and am truly sickened that we continue to manufacture button pushing dummies (my brother's term so very long ago) at such an alarming rate. The last advice I was ever able to give to a high school student who was trying to impress some UC school with his application essays was to put down the laptop, pick up a pad of paper and a pen, and start writing -- then I would help him with what he wrote. I'm currently working on a friend's screenplay and am about to do just that very thing myself.