In November of 2022, the company OpenAI launched a sophisticated artificial intelligence chatbot known as ChatGPT.
Among ChatGPT’s numerous capabilities is the capacity to generate essay-length responses from the kind of prompts — such as “write 1000 words on the hard problem of consciousness” — that are frequently given in humanities and social sciences exams and assignments. This capacity has generated widespread concern among university faculty and administrators about the impact ChatGPT is having and will have on student learning and academic integrity.
Art of Writing asked Berkeley undergraduates to reflect, in the form of short essays, on how ChatGPT is currently affecting and might in the future change their relationship to writing, studying, thinking, and researching.
Editors Alex Creighton and Patricia Kubala selected the three essays below for publication and worked with the authors to help these essays reach their final forms.
Emma Lalor, “Just ChatGPT It!”
Yuki Suzuki, “Does ChatGPT Stimulate Human Creativity?”
Sabrina Dunn, “ChatGPT, Thinking Chamber or Thought Stopper?”