Thanks for this very measured take on a topic that provokes a lot of kneejerk reactions, in both directions. I tend to fall on the side of it being largely a negative tool for the humanities. Something that will reorient the ways we discuss and teach critical thinking.

Right now, there is a huge, overwhelming push away from the humanities as being an entirely impractical field. STEM rules the land. This is reflected in the quote above, where ChatGPT is framed a kind of calculator and the process of thinking through an idea as being tedious, already mastered steps. This is, of course, true in math, where equations must follow specific set patterns and rules. But if you’re writing an essay or working out a research question, it’s the personal struggle that gives the work its real value. The human element is what gives it its value. If you teach people to skip this difficult work, and to rely on what are essentially borrowed ideas coldly cobbled together from variety of unknown sources, you run the risk of seriously stunting their ability to develop any genuinely new or exciting ideas.

Hi @louis, thanks for your comment. I am right there with you. I have seen that same argument comparing ChatGPT to calculators, and the problem for me is that it’s not being used that way. I like the general idea behind Moriarty telling students “writing makes you smarter. ChatGPT makes you sound like everybody else.” That’s a great argument… but it’s falling on deaf ears. My students did not care about developing skills. They care about getting the assignment over with. And that’s not a dig at the students. In my personal experience, young students often must be taught to care, and the process of writing is one way to teach them that. In cases like that, ChatGPT builds a bridge from the start of the learning process to the end of it, allowing students to completely skip the actual learning.

Going back to the calculator example, we as educators allow students to use calculators in upper level coursework only, such as calculus and trig. I don’t know what constitutes that upper level coursework within the humanities– I don’t know who those students might be. But I know who they aren’t: highschoolers who are just getting the hang of writing.

@bklint I was actually wondering about this recently – how professors actually detect if a student used an AI tool or not. There are several students at the university I work at who have openly admitted to me that they use ChatGPT to write papers or to summarize projects all the time, and they never get caught. Regardless, when students do this they are only cheating themselves and will have a hard time in their careers trying to come up with original thoughts or ideas.

@bklint I really enjoyed your video. Thank you for all of your sharing. The real life situations you described along with your responses through the lens of our course were spot on. I so agree with your points – especially about mental health, etc.

@bklint Excellent video! Having the library host a sign-up for a walk that raises awareness and funds for suicide prevention sounds to me like the epitome of wholehearted librarianship / whole-person perspective. I’m sorry your efforts were shut down. It sounds like an initiative with great potential for community building.

Also, I’m becoming more and more convinced that public and academic libraries need to have cafes attached to them for the reasons you lay out: people need a place to drink coffee and tea, to sit comfortably, socialize, and decompress — the third place!

@bklint I really enjoyed your video and your ideas on connecting students to one another, and not just academic resources. Mentioning coffee shops – the academic library I currently intern at has had a coffee shop for a few years now and it actually makes a huge difference. The coffee shop is right next to a really big comfy sitting area where talking is allowed, and there are also computers, printers, and scanners for schoolwork as well. Many of the students that come to the coffee shop aren’t necessarily coming for the library, but end up staying, socializing, and using the library services because they are already there and get comfy. I honestly believe that every academic library should incorporate coffee shops.

@bklint That last paragraph resonates! I like your approach…and the idea of a torch into the night!