We're Finding Out More About What Using A.I. for Writing Does to Your Thinking. The Timing Couldn't Be Worse.

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. This spring's hot topic of conversation for my colleagues in higher ed was that "Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College" article in New York magazine. Most of the fellow professors I spoke with about this were horrified by how often students now can and do let A.I. write their papers. Others are joining their students in asking, Why not? A surprising coalition--William Shakespeare and 17th-century scribes, as well as 21st-century elementary school teachers, anti-fascist scholars, and epidemiologists--would tell you why not. A key principle for 17th-century scholars transcribing or translating classical or biblical texts was lectio difficilior potior: The reading that is stranger is stronger.