Let's Talk About AI!

 Let’s Talk About AI. 

I recently started University for the second time. Let me clarify, I’m doing my master’s degree in creative writing. I am the proud owner of an undergrad degree in English Literature and creative writing. It is safe to say that I had a horrific quarter-life crisis, and as a result of this, my ten-year plan was completely derailed. I scrapped the original plan of being a teacher and decided that I would continue with my education until I could formulate a better plan for going forward. 

I started classes on Monday, and other than a terrible sense of imposter syndrome, it is actually going very well. One thing that took me by surprise was the university’s new policy, which states that all courses must include AI at some point, whether that be in lectures and seminars or in assignments. Now this could be helpful for certain subjects, like IT-based ones or number-based courses. 

I, however, am doing a creative writing course. Whereas if we use AI to help us within our work, it renders everything we’ve learnt slightly useless. We are being taught the foundations of how to create a piece of art. If we are told to use software to achieve this, we aren’t using the skills we have spent 4 years learning at all. 

My university constantly preaches the importance of student satisfaction, and they revel in how their courses are accessible to all. Surely, by telling creatives to use a generative system to write their assignments, you are taking away our rights to access our course properly. As a student, I can confidently say that I am not satisfied with this at all. In fact, I think it is slightly ridiculous. 

In my head, AI manifests itself as one of those dumb robots from Netflix’s The Mitchells’ Versus the Machines (a brilliant film, watch it!). A stupid machine made by someone who thought they were making life easier, but did not think it through all the way first. In my head, AI walks around speaking in a broken version of English, thinking that it is making complete sense when, in actuality, it just looks stupid. It becomes the butt of the joke instead of the serious machine it wants to be. 

One of my biggest issues with AI is how people are using it to create stories instead of putting in the effort to write them themselves. I cannot count the number of times that I have sat down to doomscroll on social media only to come across a retelling of a story usually layered over a Minecraft parkour video. I watch it so intently, thinking the whole time how the person who experienced this must have a crazy life, only to find out it never happened at all. Instead, some idiot has put a prompt into ChatGPT and has made it all up. It is disappointing if I’m honest, and I have given up hope that I will ever find actual writers telling their stories on social media. 

Now I may be slightly hypocritical in my writing here, as I do use AI from time to time. I’m not perfect, OK?!?!?!. I’ve let you down, and more importantly, I’ve let myself down. Specifically, I use AI to help summarise articles and novels that I haven’t had time to read into specific bullet points that I can use to help me with my essays. Or I ask stupid questions like, could a bear win in a fight against a shark? I never, repeat NEVER, use it to do my writing for me. I type out every letter that goes into my assignments, my stories, and my blog posts. 

I am truly of the opinion that AI should be allowed to be used in universities where useful. For subjects that would genuinely benefit from it, I am all for it. But when creativity is involved, it is rude and reductive. It takes the core of what we are spending time learning and tries to take it away by making it easier. 

Dear universities, we do not want our courses to be made easier by software; we want to be able to continue to produce our art authentically. Please do better!!!

Sincerely, 

A very pissed off creative writing student.