Hear a lot that AI can be used to enhance learning rather than outsource but every day I get emails like this (subject:"Turn big ideas into A work") offering me 50% off Grammarly to generate my work with AI, check it to see if it sounds like AI, then rewrite it with AI to not sound like AI.
Google AI overview: It's like a page from a deranged children's book
Anthropic will pay a human $265,000-$295,000 for this role which suggests among other things that they think someone human should still know how to write and also that the someone who can still write is worth paying $$ and at least on those things we agree.
This is not at all what happens at the Writing Center I run but interesting that Turnitin is suggesting that human tutors are less competent than the "instructor controlled AI assistant"
It is hard to figure out if there is an actual literal way to read this ad that is selling a paraphraser to rewrite your paper while telling you that your paper should not be "what AI churns out."
The way to "sound like you" is to figure out what you think and say it. All of us who teach students need to talk to them about this message that sounding "like you" means "AI drafting, summarizing, and revising" because this message is on every platform every day.
A few months ago I had the chance to speak at the Secondary School Writing Centers Association Conference, where I met so many thoughtful high school writing tutors who are trying to make sense of how AI affects their work and education. One group of students, from Waterford School in Utah /1
Once again, not sure about the marketing strategy here of telling Writing Center directors that their tutors are bad at their jobs by misrepresenting what tutors do in order to sell them an AI replacement. The idea that a tutor just offer a "red pen" is both insulting and wrong.
New Common Sense Media survey of teens/tweens and AI is out. More evidence (not that we need it) that helping students understand how LLMs work is crucial. In my (college) writing course about AI, we begin there. /1
I continue to be fascinated by the marketing campaign that targets writing center directors to use Turnitin AI by telling them how bad they are at their jobs.
