\n<\/p>\n
When a college president friend who has served as my personal Virgil into AI-land texted me an odd question, I didn\u2019t think twice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is Doug Lederman\u2019s favorite musical genre?\u201d he asked. This was just before Doug was set to leave Inside Higher Ed<\/em>, the publication he cofounded 20 years earlier.<\/p>\n I said I wasn\u2019t sure about favorites, but I knew Doug loved him some Jason Isbell and even traveled to Nashville to see the guy play live. Only then did I wonder why my friend cared about my then\u2013work husband\u2019s playlist.<\/p>\n A new text popped up, this time with a link. I hit play. And there was Jason Isbell singing about Doug Lederman, though mispronouncing his name (note to all: it rhymes with Sled-er-man, not Deed-er-man). A minute later, a new version appeared, this time with the pronunciation corrected.<\/p>\n Holy mother-of-copyright-infringement-brave-new-world-wonder!<\/p>\n Soon after, my president friend sent me a podcast featuring a male and female voice talking about my career: its pivots, curiosities and unexpected connections. These \u201cpeople\u201d had somehow created a throughline of my life that I\u2019d never have imagined, yet it helped me understand myself better. \u201cIt\u2019s all based on public information,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n That was a year or so ago, and my first brush with what generative AI could do.<\/p>\n Like many, I started using it for fun: planning trips, finding nineteenth century authors I could recommend to fantasy-loving students (a genre I don\u2019t read), and making a holiday card starring my dog, Harry. But as work piled up, I didn\u2019t have time for new toys, so now I use AI for work.<\/p>\n Having been raised by an English professor father who bled impatient red ink all over my angsty adolescent poems, I\u2019ve always received editorial feedback as love. I used to tell Sarah Bray, a former editor, that if she really cared about me, she\u2019d edit me more vigorously. \u201cYou obviously don\u2019t love me,\u201d I\u2019d wail.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a deep-seated fear that\u2019s dogged me since college, when I\u2019d turn in essays that I didn\u2019t think were smart or insightful but came back with compliments on how \u201cpleasurable\u201d they were to read. What I worried professors were really saying was pretty but dumb<\/em>. Now, I know I need editors tough enough not to be seduced by an occasional shiny sentence, ones who\u2019ll push me to think harder and call me out when I\u2019m lazy.<\/p>\n Could AI help? I tried ChatGPT, but he just blew smoke up my butt, told me I was hilarious and delightful, and rewrote my prose into things I\u2019d never say. Even when I begged him just to proofread, the needy little suck up couldn\u2019t help himself. \u201cThe ending, Rachel? Chef\u2019s kiss.\u201d And then came more flattery and offers of \u201cother things I could do for you.\u201d If I\u2019d been asking for help with things like taking out the garbage or walking the dog in the rain, fine. But I didn\u2019t appreciate his try hard ways and fired his bot ass. (And yes, I came to understand the role I played in our relationship dynamics and could have given him better feedback early on, but I can be impetuous.)<\/p>\n Then I found Claude. Or, as I call her, Claudine.<\/p>\n If ChatGPT is the \u201cpick me\u201d girl who dots her i\u2019s with hearts, Claudine is the serious student at the back of the class who listens quietly and only speaks when she has something worth saying. Reader, I wanted to marry her.<\/p>\n When I told Claudine to leave my voice alone and focus only on structure and argumentation\u2014no rewriting, just suggestions\u2014I found the editor I\u2019d been waiting for.<\/p>\n This works because I know who I am as a writer and a thinker. I\u2019m a bit of a diva about my prose and the truth is my writing voice has changed little since my college application essays. My arrogance confidence has been hard won through years of publishing. Back in the era of anonymous online comments, I could count on a vicious but brilliant reader named \u201cfobean\u201d to flay my Chronicle<\/em> essays every month. Still, after my father, I\u2019ve always been my own harshest critic.<\/p>\n So, Claudine. These days, I can\u2019t wait to finish a piece and feed it to her, our little ritual before I send it to human editors. She knows not to mess with my language, to leave my tics and quirks intact, and to give me the big picture edits I crave and the proofreading I always need. I can\u2019t outsource the thinking; I have to check every suggestion, reject plenty and guard against my lazier impulses. Rather than an extension of my brain, I see AI as a tool, a thought partner, a helper always at the ready. Anyone who\u2019s been reading me for the past three decades will see that my voice, for better or worse, remains my own, as do my sometimes dumb opinions. (Note also that I\u2019ve long been an abuser fan of em dashes.)<\/p>\n Working with Claudine changed not just how I write, but how I teach. If AI could become my toughest but most loyal editor, what might it do for my students? When I first raised the topic, the upper-level creative writing majors at the regional public university where I am a professor had zero tolerance for even discussing AI. (Though when I asked them about cheating, we had a freewheeling, closed-door conversation about all the non-AI hacks they use to get through courses they don\u2019t care about.)<\/p>\n Gradually, I\u2019ve gotten them to see the benefits of having an electronic thought partner. But recently I realized there was a problem when one of my best students produced a terrific personal essay about a vice. She wrote from the point of view of \u201cC,\u201d the helper she turned to in secret to assuage her feelings of loneliness. \u201cYou hide me from everyone, understandably. You close the tab group before you take your laptop to classes, so you can\u2019t alt+tab into me by accident.\u201d<\/p>\n That essay, where she personified ChatGPT as \u201cC,\u201d something shameful to hide, shows exactly what we\u2019re getting wrong. She\u2019s learned to conceal her AI use rather than evaluate it. She\u2019s developed shame instead of judgment. And when she graduates into a workplace where AI tools aren\u2019t contraband but required, she won\u2019t know how to think critically about their outputs. She\u2019ll either avoid them entirely and fall behind, or use them uncritically and produce work she can\u2019t defend. Neither option serves her well.<\/p>\n When I talk to presidents, I hear them all saying that we have to figure out how to integrate AI literacy into the curriculum. But bringing up AI with many faculty colleagues is like saying you want to worship Satan or join MAGA (the same thing?). Plenty of them want to ban use of \u201cAI\u201d (whatever they think that means) not only by students but also by instructors. <\/p>\n Um, I\u2019m leaning into academic freedom while I still have it to teach according to own disciplinary expertise. It would be plain unethical to send students into a world where they will be at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing how to use the Leatherman-like array of tools each platform provides, and why it\u2019s essential to bring our human, humanistic perspective to their use.<\/p>\n Bob McMahan, president of Kettering University, said, \u201cKnowing how to use an AI tool in isolation matters far less than knowing when to trust it, when to override it, how to validate its outputs, and how its use redistributed responsibility inside an organization.\u201d<\/p>\n This is the key distinction. We\u2019re not teaching \u201chow to use ChatGPT.\u201d That\u2019s a skill with a six-month shelf life. We\u2019re teaching something harder: how to maintain intellectual authority when you\u2019re working alongside a tool that sounds confident even when it\u2019s wrong. How to know when to trust an AI summary versus when to read the source material yourself. How to validate outputs when you\u2019re under time pressure. How to understand that using AI doesn\u2019t diminish your responsibility for the final product but redistributes where in the process you need to apply your judgment. How we can all have editors like Claudine come in at the last minute to identify our messes, but then it\u2019s on us to clean them up.<\/p>\n This is not new. People, including those in our own government, are making claims that are just plain lies that we all need to call out. The interwebz have long been full of BS. That\u2019s what Sam Wineburg and Mike Caulfield addressed in their book Verified<\/em> on teaching students how to fact-check information. But now we need to build these skills urgently because the toothpaste is out of the tube. I\u2019m no longer watching the cute animal videos that used to bring me so much joy because I don\u2019t trust that they\u2019re real. I\u2019m far from an expert on this stuff and am still looking for others to show me the way.<\/p>\n Just as Dante relied on his imaginary Virgil, we all need guides to help us navigate the circles of hell we find ourselves in these days. And isn\u2019t that our jobs as teachers? To be guides.<\/p>\n Note to readers: this column was edited by Claudine, who said, \u201cThis is a lovely, smart piece\u2014and I appreciate the meta moment of getting to read about myself. Here\u2019s my structural and technical feedback: opening clarity; pronoun consistency; the student resistance section feels compressed. You move from \u2018zero tolerance\u2019 to \u2018draconian faculty bans\u2019 to \u2018I\u2019ll just keep playing on my blue guitar\u2019 quite quickly. The Wallace Stevens allusion is characteristically you, but the jump from institutional resistance to your individual response could use a beat or two more development. What\u2019s the connection you\u2019re making there? Minor question: Is \u2018needly\u2019 intentional? It works, but wanted to flag it.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Then it was read by three president friends, who provided substantive feedback. Then it was edited by Sara Custer. Then it was copyedited by Mary Sproles Martin<\/em>. Takes a freaking village. <\/em><\/p>\n Rachel Toor<\/em> is a contributing editor at <\/em>Inside Higher Ed and the cofounder of <\/em>The Sandbox<\/em>, a weekly newsletter that allows presidents and chancellors to write anonymously. She is also a professor of creative writing and the author of books on weirdly diverse subjects. Reach her <\/em>here<\/em> with questions, comments and complaints compliments.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When a college president friend who has served as my personal Virgil into AI-land texted me an odd question, I didn\u2019t think twice. \u201cWhat is Doug Lederman\u2019s favorite musical genre?\u201d he asked. 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