How to write a response as a validator to this article?

Writing is a cornerstone of a university education, and for good reason. It is not only a form of communication, but a means of discovery, recalling the old adage, "How do I know what I think until I see what I write?" What could be more central to the examined life? What skill could be more predictive of postgraduate career success than the ability to write well?

Many are beginning to worry, however, that writing in the university is under threat. Technological innovations have long been associated with the replacement of manual labor, but nowlike the zombies in the postapocalyptic literature class I teachthey are coming for our brains. As noted by Slate, artificial intelligence (AI) programs that generate text have become so widely available and affordable that many are beginning to suspect students are using AI to write essays for their university classes. Jeff Schatten, an associate professor of business administration at Washington and Lee University, recently prophesized the coming plagiarism apocalypse in an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education titled "Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing?"

How worried should we be? There is limited data on how often students make use of such software, but Schatten's concerns seem justified. These new services generate content that is not traceable to any source and cannot be identified by current plagiarism-checking software. And the content AI can produce is startling in its specificity and organization. It makes piecemeal plagiarismin which students casually copy writing from other sources into their own workboth efficient and fun.

For example, I recently used Sudowrite to see what would happen after prompting it to help me compose an essay about E. M. Forster's 1909 short story, "The Machine Stops," in which humans, living in a series of underground tunnels because the surface of the planet is no longer ecologically habitable, have become totally reliant upon an omniscient Machine. After I typed a few sentences to begin an essay on the story, Sudowrite generated the following suggested text to complete my paragraph: "While the Machine is the 'handmaid' that helps deliver things to the people, they have become so reliant on it that if the Machine shut down, they would die.... We find solace in the presence and use of these machines to help us with everythingthey are our servants, our caretakers. We have stopped thinking for ourselves and simply rely on technological devices to do so for us." Open the pod bay doors, Hal.

Undoubtedly, tools like Sudowrite will change the way that writing is assigned in our classes. But, speaking as a college writing instructor, I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing.

Many college classes assign writing as a product-based endeavor: students complete an essay, turn it in, and receive a grade. But writing assessment is not synonymous with writing instruction, and the writing-as-product model does little more than punish or reward students for writing skills that they likely already had before even beginning the assignment. If we want to dissuade students from using artificial intelligence to help produce their writing, we need to treat writing differently. If we want to teach writing in our classes, if we want students to use writing as a deliberative, reflective space to facilitate critical thinking, innovation, and self-awareness, we need to move away from framing writing assignments as primarily product-based endeavors.