Writing with AI

It's interesting to me how quickly the discussion of AI shifts

As a teaching student I have seen big changes within less than a year.

When I started studying the uni warned me from using AI for any assignments. They said I'd be caught and get a big word like plagiarism thrown at me. So I couldn't help but cheekily use screenshots from Google in my essay that showed their AI-based summaries of relevant definitions.

Then last year the NSW Department of Education brought in an AI service to help teachers draft comments about students for their reports.

I began to wonder how the uni could continue to warn teaching students from using AI, seeing as they need to train people to take roles in a profession that has moved toward this technology.

This term the lecturers started saying we could use AI, but only as a tool to clarify thinking and structure ideas. At this rate I’ll be able to hand in an AI-written assignment by the end of my degree!

Not so fast, Jason.

A recent report found that AI worked best when “finding and summarising information, generating meeting minutes, knowledge management and drafting content.” This report for the Department of the Treasury describes those as “basic administrative tasks.”

It's still early in my degree so I expect to be writing assignments for a while yet, but clearly this tool will become more important in what remains of my working career.