Resist the AI apocalypse: Students want to be 'capable humans, independent thinkers'

The AI apocalypse can be averted, argues Carlo Rotella in the New York Times Magazine. Reading, writing and thinking are not obsolete. His English students at Boston College "want to be capable humans, independent thinkers."

Like many other humanities professors, he's retooled his classes. "An A.I.-resistant English course has three main elements: pen-and-paper and oral testing; teaching the process of writing rather than just assigning papers; and greater emphasis on what happens in the classroom," Rotella writes.

Professors are using more short quizzes to hold students accountable for doing the reading. He now tells students to "scan and turn in their mark-ups — underlinings, marginal notes, highlighting — of the hard copy they’re reading, which is as close as I can get to watching them think as they read."

Some "emphasize teaching the process of writing — breaking it down into a series of steps that a teacher can see and respond to — rather than simply grading the product."

Rotella has students write brief responses to the reading that can be turned into first drafts and then final drafts. Reading all the drafts is more work for him, but it means he'll notice if the final paper doesn't reflect the student's thinking. He's also added "a conference in which the student tells me about conceiving and writing a paper."

"Class discussions offer increasingly rare opportunities to practice talking about ideas with other people, being a fully present member of a community pursuing a shared purpose, understanding others’ views," the professor writes. "College graduates will need such competences to make their way in the world." Participating in discussions is part of students' grades.

To build classroom community, he bans cellphones and laptops. Attention must be paid.

Rotella starts the semester with a speech: "Reading is thinking and writing is thinking . . . using A.I. to do your thinking for you is like joining the track team and doing your laps on an electric scooter. You’re paying $5 a minute for college classes; don’t spend your time here practicing to be replaceable by A.I. Use it or lose it, people."