For writers, the pen (or keyboard) is their mightiest tool. For others, AI is unlocking possibilities once out of reach.
Theresa Merrick Cassidy, assistant director of the Writing Center, teaches technical and professional writing in the Department of English. She is part of a team researching and developing resources for teaching in the age of AI, with a special focus on best practices for writing.
How has AI impacted your work at the Writing Center?
For decades, we’ve had opinions about what writing should or should not look like. I feel the writing process looks different for everybody. So, in a way, AI has been helpful in the sense that we get to blow up that conversation again and start from scratch.
The main thing with AI is the “human in the loop” concept. AI might be able to play a role or help with a certain stage of writing, but the writer needs to have creative control and authority.
I think it’s hard to know for sure what AI is going to do to writing in general in the future. It’s already changed what writing looks like. The policy I follow is, we just need to keep having conversations about it.
Are students embracing AI or pushing back?
Recently I’ve noticed that students are coming in with a much better sense of what they think about AI. Early on, everybody was just unsure. Now students have had a chance to try the tools themselves, so they see where it might be helpful and where it’s terrible. We definitely see students coming in with different perspectives.
Are students worried about AI taking their jobs?
I think so. I teach a lot of engineering and architecture students, and they hear stories about how AI is going to replace them, so there’s definitely fear. I think we have to figure out how to prepare them for a world where maybe their job is going to look a little different than what our programs have been designed to train them for.
We have a duty as educators to make sure our students feel like they’re going to graduate into a world where they know what to do. That framework then allows people to think about what they can do with AI and without AI. But also — and this is where I think AI literacy is important in education — being able to think critically.
No matter what the world looks like, their skills as human thinkers will help them.
Is AI an equalizer or does it exacerbate inequality?
Both. On one hand, you have companies offering free AI tools. But not all students are going to sign up for them, and the free tools aren’t as advanced as the paid versions. Students may not have the means to pay for the better versions, and faculty also may not have funding for those tools. You get drastically different outputs comparing the free tools to the pro tools. I think that’s shined a light on just how much this can exacerbate access issues for students.
On the other hand, AI is becoming a tool for accessibility. I’ve met with a lot of students who say they’ve struggled with writing because they’re dyslexic or have ADHD, so organizational thinking can be difficult for them. They’ve told me they’re able to dump their ideas into an AI tool, and it helps them organize and get started. Another writer talked about using AI to create a schedule that allowed her to stop and start without losing focus.
We say writing is thinking, but thinking is messy. So the way a tool can help the thinking process has been really cool to see for folks who just can’t sit down and knock out an essay. It takes more work than that.
Writers seem to not like AI for writing, but non-writers do. What’s your experience using AI as a tool for students?
That distinction between people who identify as writers and people who say that writing is just part of what they have to do is important to keep in mind. We want to protect the writing industry and writers, but sometimes people just have to get some writing done in their job — and AI can help.
My colleague and I have been doing a research study over the last couple years, and professionals have told us that using the AI tools has given them the ability to feel and sound more professional — to be more confident. If they struggle with a second language, they feel like they were understood. I can’t ignore those types of use cases.
AI writing tools are being used in amazing, powerful ways, but at the same time they’re being used in ways that harm. Holding space for both of those is important.
How are you preparing students for their AI future?
We want to make sure students know they can still function and perform the way they need to when those tools aren’t there, because AI could go away at any point or it could go behind a paywall or change its parameters. So you need to have your own critical thinking skills.
The tools are trained to make you happy, so it takes a lot of pushing for it to be like, “You got me. That’s not right. Sorry.” I think the students enjoy those types of moments: when they feel like they’re the authorities. Those activities where they get to figure out where the boundaries of AI are — and what it can’t do — have been fun for them.
They learn to not just rely on it. That is another critical thinking skill they’re learning. They’re just learning it in a different way than their parents had to learn it. I am proud of our students. They’re thinking through things so carefully and thoughtfully. I think sometimes they get a bad rap, such as the assumption they’re using AI tools to cheat. But they’re thinking about those tools and using them in very complex, interesting ways. Or they’re choosing not to for complex, interesting reasons.
