I’m participating a Pedagogy Group organized by the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Reading and writing are the first technologies of any technological society. They are the base and foundation on which everything else is built. Compare the ~300,000 years of human history before the invention of writing with the more recent ~6000 years of documented history. Culture has evolved considerably since the invention of writing. We ask our students to write so that they can come to wield the most powerful meta-tool humanity has ever created.
This is, of course, a bit too dramatic. It is too profound for standard education. We don’t, in our day to day lives, think much of the immense power of writing. As far as education is concerned, it is closer to the truth to say that reading and writing are in high demand. Industry highly values communication skills. We want people who can understand the written word and make themselves understood through it.
In my own teaching, I make an unusually big deal out of explanation in writing. I think that in order to really understand something, one needs to write about it. Writing, whether or not anyone else will ever read it, can help clarify our thinking and make it more precise. There’s a great quote by an American computer scientist, Leslie Lamport, about this: “If you’re thinking without writing, then you only think you’re thinking.” So, that’s why we teach students to write in our classes: it’s powerful, in high demand, and nutures the ability to think.
And now, let’s turn to second prompt. As I mentioned above, writing is the primal technology. It is so powerful, and so expansive, that we almost forget about its existence. This makes it especially hard to draw make analogies about the role of writing in our culture. For a moment, though, let’s pretend like cooking is analogous to writing. It’s a surprisingly versatile skill, applicable in a broad range of contexts, and you need to practice to do it well.
The challenge of assigning writing tasks in the present bubble of Generative AI is that you get an overwhelming amount of terribly cooked food. Or rather, surreal-y cooked food. You ask for a salad, and you get the ingredients put through a food processor and served as a smoothie. You hope to teach people about a simple preparation of baked potatoes and instead they serve you french fries.
What I want to highlight about these examples is that the product you ask for is rather simple, a salad or a baked potato, but what you get relies on the existence of some high technology. In these cases, blenders and deep friers. If that technology goes away, then the cook is unable to prepare the meal. They can’t whip up a salad, or even something as simple as a baked potato. They can’t feed themselves.
What I’m trying to say is this: the challenge of assigning writing tasks in this bubble of generative AI is that students unknowingly impoverish their own learning experience and run the risk of not learning how to write. If people learn to write, for the very first time, immersed in generative AI then they are giving up their power and agency to technologists who don’t have any incentive to serve their best interests. They’re giving up their ability to think.
Published: Feb 3, 2025 @ 19:12.
Last Modified: Feb 13, 2025 @ 20:45.
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