Writing & AI

I used pen and paper during a short flight while drafting and brainstorming ideas for this essay, the gliding of the pen on my notebook paper going only so quickly, ideas swirling in my head faster than I could scribe. So analog, so quaint—most other passengers were glued to laptops and phones. It felt like an anachronistic, rebellious act. My young seatmate glanced over with intrigue as I scribbled.

For 17 years, I taught middle and high school English. I relished the challenge of helping students embrace the power of the written word. We worked on sentence variety, incorporating logos, pathos, and ethos, understanding potential audience needs, and countless other nuances. The challenge was immense. ChatGPT had just emerged when I permanently left the classroom in 2022.

I also blogged and wrote for publication on a fairly regular schedule during most of my teaching career. I read widely, attempting to distill ideas and make sense of the world. If you asked me what I did, I’d inevitably respond that I’m a teacher and a writer. It was central to my identity. Writing offered hours of contemplation, the forging of my pedagogy and personal ethics, and more. I now can’t imagine going through this period of my life without writing.

If nothing else, embracing the writing process requires (or used to) critical thinking, patience, and persistence. Now, it can entail a few mouse clicks, entering the right prompts, and perhaps a few tweaks of AI-generated material. Have AI create a list of ideas for an article? Check. Draft marketing emails? Easy. Write an 850-word op-ed about why the average person won’t need to become a well-rounded writer? For sure. (I asked ChatGPT to do just this, and the response was clear and reasonably compelling.)

A recent survey of 1,000 young knowledge workers conducted by Google Workspace and the Harris Poll indicated that 82 percent are already using AI. A vast majority of those respondents have used AI tools for tasks like drafting and writing challenging emails, striking the right tone in their writing, and overcoming language barriers. Surely, there are benefits to the automation of rote tasks, note-taking, and other work demands. It seems to me, however, that a seismic shift is occurring. If young, highly educated workers are embracing and increasingly using AI for the writing process, then who wouldn’t? What does it even mean to be a writer in the age of AI?

Are we entering an era where the average citizen won’t have any need to write? Or how many people will identify as or want to become writers, with the process becoming democratized and instantaneous? How many will still relish the challenge of crafting a lengthy sentence, full of meaning, with possibilities of diction, rhythm, punctuation, and more at their fingertips, when AI can generate well-constructed prose in a fraction of the time spent?

Teaching as smartphones emerged, then became ubiquitous in schools, was brutal. I taught in schools without strict smartphone usage policies, which led to a constant battle for attention, tension between teachers and students due to varying norms and rules from classroom to classroom, and, more egregiously, increased cyberbullying and social media stunts. Nonetheless, some teachers embraced smartphones’ computing and creative power. I became a skeptic; I spent time ruminating and writing about how this technology was changing teaching and learning, attention spans, and conversation.

Now, reporting from The New York Times and other outlets indicates significant smartphone pushback from school districts as they try to put the proverbial genie back in the bottle. They’re smart to do so, I think, as the pros outweigh the negatives when it comes to teaching and learning. It will be fascinating to observe how school systems, from K–12 to higher education, approach integrating or pushing back on the use of AI tools in learning. I do wonder how I’d approach my job as an English teacher if I were still teaching. I’ll let current educators figure this out.

I’m now working primarily as a handyman, but I do write for publication from time to time. If you ask me now what I do, I say I’m a handyman but I also do some writing on the side. I’m trying to convince myself that I’m still a writer—that it’s still possible to come up with original ideas in a time when generative AI tools create unrelenting streams of communication, can write whole novels or screenplays in seconds or minutes, and mimic the great works of literary masters.

Writing this piece feels like a small win. From yesterday’s flight and notebook musings to drafting, revising, and editing, I know there’s still value in grappling with ideas and writing in the age of AI. I don’t write as much for myself anymore, but perhaps I should.

I did, however, run this essay draft through ChatGPT to check for excessive passive voice and note any grammatical missteps. It helped revise some sentences and noted some other errors. For that, I’m cautiously hopeful that there’s a path forward for young people to find a balance between the valuable—and rewarding—work that writing entails and the promise of generative AI.