Banning ChatGPT will do more harm than good

If educators actively engage with students about the technology's capabilities and limitations--and work with them to define new academic standards--ChatGPT, and generative AI more broadly, could both democratize and revitalize K–12 education on an unprecedented scale. A bold claim, I know. Few things are as mentally draining as applying to college these days, and as I slaved away at my supplemental essays, the promise of using ChatGPT as a real-time editor was attractive--partly as a potential productivity boost, but mostly as a distraction. I had ChatGPT carefully review my cloying use of semicolons, grade my writing on a 0–10 scale (the results were erratic and maddening)2, and even role-play as an admissions counselor. Its advice was fundamentally incompatible with the creative demands of the modern college essay, and I mostly ignored it.