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Joel J Miller's avatar

History should comfort us to some degree here. If a task can be passed off to a “lesser” critter or machine such as a horse, watermill, or computer, we’ve always done so. At scale we save human bodies and brains for stuff only humans can do. In that trade, however, there’s often a period where we’re unsure to what the human capacity will shift once liberated. So far we’ve largely figured it out; we’ll figure it out again. That ability to superintend our own contribution is something uniquely human (for now), and we’re pretty good at it.

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bill steigerwald's avatar

As a career newspaper copy-editor, editor, reporter, feature writer and op-ed columnist, I spent thousands of hours 'cleaning up' and punching up the better-than-average writing of pro writers and the semi-abysmal scribbling of letters-to-the-editor writers. I think ChatGPT could be a very good teaching tool -- I'd create an article or column, give it to each student and have he/she/they etc. work to improve it. Seeing how you can make a mediocre bit of writing much better -- clearer, sharper, funnier, meaner, edgier -- would teach newbie writers a lot of good writing tricks. Comparing and contrasting your 'fixes' with your peers -- and with Professor Virginia -- will add to the lesson.

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