LA Johnson/NPR
For English professor Dan Cryer, using generative artificial intelligence to write a college essay is like bringing a forklift to the gym.
“If all we needed was the weights moved, then that would be great,” says Cryer, who teaches at Johnson County Community College outside Kansas City, Kansas.
“But we need the muscles developed, and students going through the process of writing are developing those muscles.”
Cryer says AI has also added a new type of labor for professors like him: trying to determine whether a student’s work is their own. He says that problem is compounded by the fact that his community college,