For Language Log, Mark Liberman wrote a piece on AI in education and writing:
It’s been clear for a while that “large language models” can be prompted to fulfill writing assignments, and that LLM detection doesn’t work, and that “watermarking” won’t come to the rescue. There’s lots of on-going published discussion, and even more discussion in real life.
As documented by the MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI, the conclusion seems to be a combination of bringing AI explicitly into the class, and designing some assignments where students need to function without it.
Mark also gave the promising idea that education will survive this technological wave but perhaps it’s less surviving and more a nuanced package of acknowledgment, rejection, adaption, and protection for students and teachers alike. Attempts at cheating will never go away but if education authorities look at curricula, acknowledge any problem areas, and fix them without leaning on AI to do it for them, there might not be as much of a problem. Or do away with essays altogether? I dunno, I’m not your teacher.
Filed under: education language models