Why this teacher has adopted an open ChatGPT policy

> He readily admits he alternates between enthusiasm and anxiety about how artificial intelligence can change assessments in the classroom, but he believes educators need to move with the times.

I have respect for the idea of moving with the times, but like this prof I am simultaneously apprehensive about how generative AI will change education going forward. We may use calculators in math, but learning the basics is still important for true understanding. Do we not want the same for basic writing, forming arguments in essays, research, etc.? While nothing in the article suggests that we’re forgoing the basics yet, I worry that the trend will only accelerate.

How many younger people read for leisure versus watching hours of attention-grabbing TikTok videos? How many people read long-form articles versus skimming over Reddit post titles (I’m guilty of this myself)? We already have a surprisingly low reading level in the general populace (US). Will the ubiquitous use of such tools make the aforementioned skills limited to an even smaller, highly-educated subset of the population? Are we okay with that?

Or maybe I’m doing the classic “old man shakes fist at cloud” type of thinking. The last line might be the way to think about this:

> "I don't think human nature changes as a result of ChatGPT. I think capability did."

And that’s the way it’s done.

I’m old enough to remember the moral panic about graphing calculators making calculus a lost art, and I’ve been told of similar panics about plain old calculators.

Let people in college and post-grad dive deep into the details. The vast majority of people need to be educated on how to use the tools at their disposal to do tasks they need to do.

The sooner we recognize that AI is here, and it’s another tool, the fewer people will be disadvantaged in the future because they don’t know how to use common tools.