Generative AI is a symptom, not the problem

Natalie McEwan, Opinions and Humor Editor

I remember the first time I heard about ChatGPT. It was my first semester at VCU, after I got my first midterm essay back. I was elated to get an A+. When I visited my hometown, I excitedly shared the news with my friends.

“Thanks ChatGPT,” one friend said sarcastically. At the time, I didn’t even know what it was or what it could do, but I was defensive. How could someone even insinuate that a computer could write a perfect essay — or that I couldn’t write a perfect essay myself? 

This idea that generative AI is a threat here to replace the English major is a sentiment that worries me — and one that is only growing. 

Generative AI has left humanities departments scrambling over the past few years. As an English student, an editor for The Commonwealth Times and a Writing Center consultant, I have seen a lot of that panic firsthand from my professors, classmates and other students. 

I could rattle off all the reasons I think AI is horrible — that it trains itself by stealing from real artists’ and writers’ work, the environmental impact, the creative job layoffs by large corporations, the awful AI search results Google forced us all into. I do not think it is ethical or responsible to use generative AI, and I think it’s a dangerous addiction for our minds and attention spans as college students. 

However, I don’t think that ChatGPT is the problem here at VCU. As much as it frustrates me when I have to peer review or edit a paper clearly written by a robot instead of a person, I don’t believe my fellow students are the problem either. I believe VCU — and, on a larger scale, the American education system — is the problem. 

Since the 2008 recession, there has been a rising rhetoric around college degrees and their perceived “usefulness.” On some levels this critique is valid, eighteen-year-olds should not sign off on hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt they may never be able to pay off. But a lot of this criticism has been pushed toward the humanities, instead of focusing on the tuition rates themselves. 

A university is a business, one that is increasingly metrics-driven. This hurts everyone. Students think they need to get the highest grade they can get instead of focusing on learning. This pressure and mindset creates cheating and plagiarism. Professors are discouraged from failing students even if it is in the student’s benefit. 

Enter ChatGPT. When the humanities have been devalued for years, when we conceive of writing — and a degree —  like it is a product and not a process, when students want the highest grade they can get with the lowest possible effort, it makes sense for them to want to use ChatGPT on their UNIV papers. It even makes sense for professors to panic. 

For us to fear ChatGPT and see it as a real threat to writing, the humanities and to VCU, we misunderstand the entire point of a humanities degree. In fact, we misunderstand the purpose of writing all those papers to begin with. 

ChatGPT can produce a product that is free of grammatical errors — one that, on surface level, looks well written. But writing a grammatically correct “product” is not the point of college level writing. 

Writing is a process — a way to express argument, deeply explore topics and engage in critical thinking. These are things ChatGPT is far less proficient in. And, by using ChatGPT on your assignments, you are depriving yourself and your brain of that higher level thinking. 

Ask yourself what the point of your degree is. Why are you here, in college? You might see a degree as a piece of paper, another step on a ladder you know you need to climb to get the job you want. But the skills you develop and the things you learn are far more important. 

No matter what your major is, writing is an important skill and another avenue for communication and self expression. You might worry you are a bad writer, but it is the moments where writing is “bad,” where grammar is a mess, that we learn and grow. 

It’s time we value the humanities and understand how important these skills truly are. It’s time we see essays as an opportunity to explore interesting topics instead of stressing about comma placement. If we change our mindsets, ChatGPT will never threaten our humanity or the humanities.