A topic much discussed of late is how professors should respond to the rise of artificial intelligence, especially applications such as ChatGPT that “help” students write.

In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Rob Jenkins weighs in on that. He teaches English and argues that professors in English and the humanities should just ignore AI.

Jenkins writes, “What, after all, is the reason for allowing students to use AI in the humanities classroom, much less encouraging them to do so and teaching them how? Because they will probably be using it at some point in their professional lives and maybe even in other courses? Fine. Let them learn how to use it elsewhere (if indeed they really needed to be taught). Because it ‘makes things easier for them’? What exactly are we making easier? Thinking? Why in the world would we want to do that?”

Good point. Many college students want to coast through and get their degrees with as little effort as possible. Professors should not enable them.

Jenkins concludes, “Can I actually prevent students from using ChatGPT or any other form of AI? Probably not. But through a carefully curated combination of teaching, encouraging, cajoling, a little bit of bluffing, and continually fine-tuning my assignments, I can at least make it more difficult for them to simply outsource their writing or thinking to the hive brain.”