Writing, Typing, Cheating, and AI

I was listening to the wonderful Mac Geek Gab, (show 958) and Dave Hamilton shared a story from his past that I found fascinating. I think that it is relevant to what we are facing as well.

You can listen to the story on the Mac Geek Gab Podcast – the story starts around 28:05, or follow my condensed, from my memory version, or read the YouTube transcript below:

Dave relates a story of when he was in 10th grade and the family had a computer. The class was assigned to write an essay. Dave wrote his rough draft on an Apple IIc since he had one. He printed it out and handed it to the teacher for the next phase. The teacher didn’t want to accept it as a rough draft because it was printed out. (My favorite line was Dave said, “I’m like, wow, just you wait, go ahead and read it. Like I’m pretty sure you’re gonna disagree with yourself. Actually, yeah, it’s pretty rough. Like I don’t think I’m that good you know”). The teacher’s point was that everyone else had to write out the rough draft and Dave was cheating. The teacher failed Dave. He headed to the Guidance Counselor who agreed with Dave.

So, how does this relate to today? Well, AI writing things is becoming, well, a thing. The kids know it. Teachers are dealing with it. The question is partly, will this become a way of writing? Will we have an AI write the rough draft, or provide alternative points, or proofread what you write, will that become “normal”?

Almost everyone I watch type, kind of defaults to looking for the red squiggles that indicate a word is spelled wrong or maybe used incorrectly (me included). This has become a reality for us.

So what does the future look like? Actually, that’s the wrong question. What does life look like today? Should we be taking advantage of these tools? Should we be teaching kids to utilize them for their benefit?

YouTube Transcript of Dave’s Essay Story

but I will share an anecdotal story from
my own history in high school in 10th Grade I had I
think it was 10th grade when we had to write our first term papers I had uh an
apple 2C at home I was very happy to have this apple 2C at home and
I they you know the process this was to learn how to write a paper so there was
a process to it and the rough draft was probably more important than the final
product right because this we had to write a rough draft and then we would go through an editing process both
individually with the teacher and then also with our groups in the class and then we would you know present a
finalized product and and the grade was sort of on the whole project great like no problem fine
I uh so I went home and I I wrote my term paper and of course I wrote it on
my Apple 2C because I had it and I knew how to type and and it was relatively
new for us this was really our first computer we had a Timex Sinclair before that but you know in terms of I don’t
know Sinclair had it had its new had its utility but so I did it and I printed out my my work
and I brought it in and the teacher was like I can’t accept this and I said uh what what do you what
do you mean they’re like well you’re this isn’t a rough draft you know you’ve printed this and I’m like wow just you
wait go ahead and read it like I’m pretty sure you’re gonna disagree with yourself actually yeah it’s pretty rough
like I don’t think I’m that good you know and uh she’s like well yeah but you didn’t hand write it like the final
product has to be typed but the the rough draft everybody else hand wrote it
I’m like not it’s fine it doesn’t bother me whatever they chose to do I’m like I did this and she’s like well you did
this on a computer right and I said yeah she said well this is like cheating because everybody else in the class uh
wrote it out by hand and then is going to have to after we do the edits it’s going to then have to go and type the
whole thing you know essentially writing it a second time on a different medium and I’m like well I mean that’s on them
like yeah all I have to do is go in and do the edits and then reprint like obviously and that is what every single
person that’s listening to this show would do today but back then what’s that
it was the future then it was no I she failed me for the project and I went
straight to my guidance counselor and I was like like this and I even told her
I’m like this is the future and it’s not like some Hundred Year future I’m like within five years this is how this class
is going to be taught and the opposite will be the exception rather than the rule and my guidance counselor looked at
the teacher and she’s like he’s a hundred percent right this is you did not put in the requirements that people
had to hand write their rough draft this is not a penmanship class yeah this is
an English class and he is getting full benefit arguably more more than full
benefit of this because he’s able to focus on the English part of it and not the pedantic handwriting and rewriting
of this thing over and over again and the teacher was pissed pissed but so 18
and a half four years with her yeah yeah exactly right uh but I I share this
anecdote because right now we all think that using an AI to write our papers is
cheating and someone thought that using a computer to write my paper was
cheating and literally failed me until she was forced not to so

*Post image from Wikimedia: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Artificial_Intelligence_%26_AI_%26_Machine_Learning_-_30212411048.jpg