When the company OpenAI launched its new artificial intelligence program, ChatGPT, in late 2022, educators began to worry. ChatGPT could generate text that seemed like a human wrote it. How could teachers detect whether students were using language generated by an AI chatbot to cheat on a writing assignment?
As a linguist who studies the effects of technology on how people read, write and think, I believe there are other, equally pressing concerns. These include whether AI, more generally, threatens student writing skills, the value of writing as a process, and the importance of seeing writing as a vehicle for thinking.
