The writing process is marvelous: brainstorming, combining ideas, writing and rewriting, continual editing, and finally, the finished product, which is actually never quite finished.

With the tools and technology available now, the writing process continues to become easier and takes less time. Today’s most rapidly progressing tool is AI, or Artificial Intelligence, which can help you write and refine your work.

When I teach my middle school students about advances in technology during the Scientific Revolution, I describe how technology has changed in my own lifetime, and it makes me sound very old :o) I share with them how I wrote papers in college using stacks of books and typewriters. I tell them what an encyclopedia is and how to use a printed dictionary. Then I progress to more familiar tools like Wikipedia, Google, and AI. Things change, and we need to keep pace with the available tools and technologies.

I have dabbled in AI for the past few years and have been astonished at what it can do. As a teacher, I can create handouts, posters, and podcasts to engage my students. I’ve also used it to write tedious but necessary documents and gather information about topics I am teaching. 

Recently, I used AI to help me write a short story, just to see what it could do. I assigned it a topic, asked it to outline a plot diagram for the story, and had it provide examples of figurative language and dialogue that I could use in the story. The result amazed and terrified me. AI surprised me with how easy writing suddenly was. It came up with the plot and the examples I requested, so I only needed to follow its outline. I could include exceptional dialogue and sensory details from the examples it shared. I didn’t have to spend days researching and rewriting or drawing idea webs – it was all there for me. 

The ease with which I was able to write was frightening. After creating a well-written short story with the help of AI, I realized there were some things I missed out on during the process. First, it robbed me of the struggle of finding information. Research takes a great deal of time, but the searching and questioning are a rewarding part of the process. Also, with AI, I didn’t struggle with word choice or how to develop my plot creatively; it was all done for me. To me, this was not a win. I value creativity and thinking in the writing process. If I were to use AI frequently, I’m afraid I would slowly lose my ability to stretch my mind and think uniquely, and I suspect that some of the humanness would be taken out of my writing. 

I’ve watched middle school students use AI in their assignments this year. I noticed that they write more than is required, but they use larger words whose meanings they don’t know. So the skill they are learning is to parrot back information that sounds intelligent, but they don’t understand the hollow words they’ve written. Their voice becomes unidentifiable in their own writing. Students are excited to utilize AI to assist them in creating essays and short-answer questions. By doing this, they think they are outsmarting the system when in reality, they’re only cheating themselves of opportunities to be imaginative and think their own thoughts. 

I recently read an article by Paul Graham on Medium where he suggested that AI is dividing the world into “write and write-nots”. Then he continued to say that a world divided like this is “more dangerous than it sounds. It will be a world of think and think-nots.”

If we quickly find answers to our questions with AI, instead of thinking about them, we will weaken our ability to problem-solve, be creative, and be curious. I greatly value these capabilities and would not want to lose them. I appreciate the ease with which AI creates and gathers information for us. However, I am concerned about the creativity and imagination that could slowly slip away from us when we no longer need to think.

Where to purchase your copy of “Catalyntje Trico: A Life in New Amsterdam”

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