ChatGPT and a forklift

From Ted Chiang’s essay “Why A.I. Isn’t Going to Make Art” (The New Yorker ). If I were teaching, I’d share this passage with my students:

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

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