June 22, 2023
Based on nothing more than my general presumption that “this time isn’t different,” I’m not an AI-doomer.
And if one of my close friends is to be believed, LLM’s don’t spell the doom of higher education—but they will force educators to make our courses better. Having been on sabbatical for the prior semester, I was able to avoid the “first wave” of ChatGPT-augmented assignments. But now, I’m making adjustments on the margin to my own course assignments.
So far, the prediction of my friend—that ChatGPT will induce better teaching—is borne out in my experience. Whereas before, I provided relatively “vanilla” essay prompts that asked students to synthesize their learning, I’ve had to leave those far behind.
Here are the questions I will be offering for extra credit in my Econ 101 class this fall semester:
How long will these last? I don’t know—AI is evolving rapidly. But I’m curious to see how they work for now.