AI Is a Language Microwave

Nearly two years ago, I wrote that AI would kill the undergraduate essay. That reaction came in the immediate aftermath of ChatGPT, when the sudden appearance of its shocking capabilities seemed to present endless vistas of possibility--some liberating, some catastrophic. Since then, the potential of generative AI has felt clear, although its practical applications in everyday life have remained somewhat nebulous. Academia remains at the forefront of this question: Everybody knows students are using AI. The answer to those questions will, at least to some extent, reveal the place that AI will find for itself in society at large.