Let students use AI to write their papers, says Harvard dean

"I would modestly suggest AI acceptance or even encouragement" in writing-intensive classes to get professors "out of the AI-detection business," wrote Harvard dean David Deming in an e-mail.

"Harvard leadership now openly encouraging AI use in writing-intensive courses is a very scary coal-mine canary for higher ed writ large," responds Tyler Austin Harper, who wrote last month on Harvard's decision to close its writing center, which was helping students to do their own writing.

Faculty in the humanities and social sciences are dubious, report Abigail S. Gerstein and Amann S. Mahajan in the Harvard Crimson. Only 35 percent of social sciences courses and 27 percent of arts and humanities courses allow some use of AI.

AI use in writing classes would only exacerbate what he called a “marked decline in student attention” since the rise of digital media, said history professor Peter E. Gordon in a statement. “It may also discourage students from developing their own responses to works of art, music, literature, and philosophy."

Deming's email quoted Kyle Saunders, a Colorado State political science professor, who encourages students to use AI on written assignments, if they include a statement explaining what tools they used, what they accepted or rejected and how they verified facts.

I don't believe Harvard students -- or any students -- need to use AI in college to prepare for the workforce. It's easy to use AI. Learning to write takes effort and practice. As I've written before: Are young people who can't write more than a paragraph what employers really want?

MIT will need to rethink every course to cope with the advent of AI, states a new report. "AI can allow students to bypass learning," and see "knowledge (or an MIT degree) as an optimizable commodity to be acquired or produced as efficiently as possible."

Education is cultural and social, says the report. Students who live, work and learn together develop "tacit expectations, habits, relationships, and values that inform how they learn to solve problems, exercise judgment, persevere through difficulty, and become members of an intellectual community."

AI can support learning, the report notes. Instructors are using AI to "develop customized, interactive learning tools." Students can "use AI to analyze data, conduct research, and build tools to amplify their expertise and pursue projects that benefit them and society at large."

That's why the report calls for AI "awareness," not a ban.