But surely the point of essay writing is to learn how to structure your thoughts into a coherent argument? If students aren't doing this, how will they learn this skill?
However, I also think that you learn by imitation. If you have a text assignment, and that you make a sloppy job, and get a bad grade, what did you learn? But if you do the same text assignment, and improve it by iterating several prompts, then at least you learn something.
Also, learning requires motivation. It's futile to compare learning methods if there is no motivation (e.g; we assume students want to cheat). If instead we assume motivation, and we lower the bar required for learning, then these students will learn more with AI than without.
The only point I'm worried about is about imagination. For instance, it's easy to ask AI for example of names, stories, etc. But there is also benefit in spending time searching these things yourself. Not sure what the tradeoff will be there.
The problem with essays is that what they're asking people to do aren't actually what we want people to be able to do. Sure, you can get a chat bot to write out some arguments about why a character in a story might be female. But you can't get it to, say, write your own experiences, or write your own novel thoughts about something, or basically anything which the AI isn't already familiar with.
AI as a spell checker and maybe filler generator works. AI as an essay generator works. AI as a replacement for the stuff you'll actually want to use your writing skills for past school doesn't work.
They'll certainly still need to use rhetoric and argumentation throughout their lives. That's the point about writing essays as a pedagogical tool; it's not about learning how to write a 3x5 essay, but rather how to construct the arguments that go into that essay.
A decade from now, what happens when one of these students who coasted through school using AI-generated essays is asked to argue on-the-fly, like in a work meeting? What if it's for something high stakes, that could impact their employment or future job trajectory at theory company? You need to be able to develop an argument with logical, supporting evidence, and articulate the complete argument in a compelling, persuasive manner -- oftentimes, on-the-fly, out-loud.
It sounds pastiche to argue with a student that "you won't always have an AI to help you" but in contrast the with a calculator, there are truly scenarios where you definitely _will not_ be able to take the time to reach for an AI crutch to build your argument for you.
Ideally you learned what mistakes you made and how to avoid them in the future. The reliability of this process will depend a lot on the teacher, but I don't see how putting AI in the mix really changes this. You will surely need to learn /something/ about writing before you could even begin to evaluate the quality of a ChatGPT essay.
One should not ever feel obligated to write a love letter, my dude.
Essays are so static. I think a debate format where you are immediately challenged on your arguments or asked to elaborate would give a much better idea of how well the student has mastered the material.