What are We Doing About AI Essays?
The November newsfeed heralded the arrival of AI essay writing. AI (or Artificial Intelligence) essay writing recruits online software that sifts through information and generates a thoughtful written analysis. Enter a prompt, and AI can turn out a reasonable essay on everything from utilitarianism to the Krebs cycle…for free.
In truth, AI authorship hardly qualifies as “news.” There is nothing new about it: AI has been generating blog content for online businesses for some time and is largely responsible for the current glut of meaningless search engine results. Enter a query about stain removal, and the top matches feature links to vacuous 1,500-word essays filled with advertisements and zero practical information. That’s AI.
That said, given the right prompts, AI software can truly deliver some lovely, thoughtful college-level writing. Of course, such a claim should require evidence, so we submitted increasingly specific prompts to a free online AI writer and