AI-generated essays are nothing to worry about (opinion)

After reviewing 22 AI essays I asked my students to create, I can tell you confidently that AI-generated essays are nothing to worry about. The technology just isn’t there, and I doubt it will be anytime soon.

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The students in this class were mostly juniors and seniors, and many were majors in rhetoric and writing. They did great work, putting in a lot of effort. But, in the end, the essays they turned in were not good. If I had believed these were genuine student essays, the very best would have earned somewhere around a C or C-minus. They minimally fulfilled the assignment requirements, but that’s about it. What’s more, many of the essays had obvious red flags for AI generation: outdated facts about the cost of tuition, quotes from prior university presidents presented as current presidents, fictional professors and named student organizations that don’t exist.

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I asked my students to write short reflections on their AI essays’ quality and difficulty. Almost every student reported hating this assignment. They were quick to recognize that their AI-generated essays were substandard, and those used to earning top grades were loath to turn in their results. The students overwhelmingly reported that using AI required far more time than simply writing their essays the old-fashioned way would have. –S. Scott Graham, Inside Higher Ed