Summary

This writing assignment constitutes the final creative challenge that students complete for Writing with Artificial Intelligence, an undergraduate writing course.

Past assignments have challenged students to explore critical literacy AI competencies — i.e., the literacies that the MLA-CCCC Joint Task Force on Writing and AI identifies as a basic literacy students must master to navigate the knowledge economy. Students have researched prompt engineering. They have leveraged critical literacy frameworks to evaluate AI “hype,” including Postman’s “Five things we need to know about technological change,” Civics of Technology’s 5 Critical Questions about Technology (a remix of Post’s top five things), and AI Snake Oil’s  “18 Pitfalls in AI Journalism.” They have researched the psychological, social, technological reasons people believe in deepfakes and misinformation. And, they have questioned the ethical moves of AI startups such as OpenAI, which have built their LLMs (large learning models) by vacuuming up copyrighted works on the internet.

Now, for this final project for Writing with Artificial Intelligence, we turn to the central question now facing humanity in response to the rise of the machines: will the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GAI) limit human agency? Will humanity leave the writing, research, and thinking for machines? Will students over-rely on GAI tools and listen to those tools rather than their felt sense, their inner speech, when it comes to problem solving and communicating?

What is the Future of Humanity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence?

“Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.”

Frank Herbert, Dune

The rapid progression of generative artificial intelligence raises profound questions about the future of human creativity, authorship, and the role of writing in learning and knowledge production. In late 2023, Rainie and Anderson (2024) from Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center surveyed and canvassed hundreds of global technology experts to investigate their thoughts on AI and the future of humanity. The study findings revealed a mix of public trepidation and optimism about AI’s consequences. Two-thirds of the experts expect negative impacts on personal privacy, over half foresee risks to employment opportunities and the integrity of politics and elections, and 40% fear AI could worsen societal civility. Simultaneously, most see promising healthcare innovations emerging.

Among the experts canvassed, perspectives spanned from AI diminishing human autonomy and skills to visions of amplified knowledge, economic overhauls benefiting humanity, and a redefinition of what it means to be “human.” Synthesizing these experts’ viewpoints, Rainie and Anderson identified five overarching themes:

1. Theme 1: We will have to reimagine what it means to be human
2. Theme 2 – Societies must restructure, reinvent or replace entrenched systems
3. Theme 3 – Humanity could be greatly enfeebled by AI
4. Theme 4 – Don’t fear the tech. People are the problem and the solution
5. Theme 5 – Key benefits from AI will arise

In AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable (2024), Roman Yampolskiy speculates that a superintelligent AI may harm humanity by taking away our sense of meaning or even by eliminating humans in a way we cannot imagine: “If you ask a squirrel to imagine all the ways in which a human could kill it, the squirrel couldn’t even begin to understand all the ways that WE as humans know about.”

In contrast to Yampolskiy’s argument that the only way humanity will be safe is to stop working on AI systems, Sam Altman imagines more positives than negatives:

Writing Prompt: Speculative Think Piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education

For this culminating assignment, you will synthesize your learning into a speculative nonfiction think piece targeted at The Chronicle’s readership of faculty, administrators, and others in the academic community. Your goal is to explore plausible future scenarios regarding one of the following questions:

1. As AI evolves, once generative artificial intelligence tools can write as well as subject matter experts with Ph.D.s, will humans outsource their composing, thinking, and knowledge-making practices to machines?
2. Will human creativity be enhanced or diminished by the rise of the machines?
3. Will writers no longer listen to their inner speech, their felt sense, to discover and develop what they want to say? For students, will writing no longer be a primary mode of learning?
4. How should our educational and professional institutions redefine composing processes, literacy, academic integrity, copyright, and intellectual property?
5. Once writing is chiefly authored by machines, with an occasional human in the loop, will humans be masters of their technology or its unthinking servants?
6. How will GAI (generative artificial intelligence) tools impinge on creative processes, including prewriting, invention, drafting, collaborating, researching, planning, designing, rereading, revising, editing, proofreading, sharing or publishing.

To investigate the question you choose to analyze, draw upon the Rainie and Anderson’s report as a scholarly starting point. Additionally, consider Eaton’s article, “Postplagiarism: Transdisciplinary ethics and integrity in the age of artificial intelligence and neurotechnology.” Also, reflect on your past creative projects, especially your efforts to build a customized bot and your creative experiment. Ground your scenarios in reasoned speculation supported by evidence, not fictionalized narratives. But go beyond these scholarly narratives, weaving in additional research and scholarship as necessary.

Your 1,000 to 1500 word think piece should map out a few plausible future pathways or implications related to your chosen angle. Explore both potential upsides and downsides, opportunities and risks. The end goal is not to convince readers of a particular future, but to provide an educated, nuanced dialogue around profound issues that academic communities must begin grappling with now. An impartial yet prudent discussion of these emerging implications is vital for preparing ourselves and our institutions.

Readings

Eaton, S. E. (2023). Postplagiarism: Transdisciplinary ethics and integrity in the age of artificial intelligence and neurotechnology. International Journal for Educational Integrity, 19 (23). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40979-023-00144-1

Rainie, Lee, J., Anderson. (2024). Experts Imagine the Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040. Imagining the Digital Future Center. https://imaginingthedigitalfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/AI2040-FINAL-White-Paper-2-2.29.24.pdf

Rothman, J. (2023, November 13). Why the godfather of A.I. fears what he’s built. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/11/20/geoffrey-hinton-profile-ai

Schedule

Step 1 – Collaborative Work

Break into groups of 5. Each group should then develop a presentation, using google slides, on the theme associated with their group number. Each group should list group members on the first slide. Each group should have about 3 or 4 slides that illustrates the gist of the theme identified by Rainie and Anderson.

1. Theme 1: We will have to reimagine what it means to be human
2. Theme 2 – Societies must restructure, reinvent or replace entrenched systems
3. Theme 3 – Humanity could be greatly enfeebled by AI
4. Theme 4 – Don’t fear the tech. People are the problem and the solution
5. Theme 5 – Key benefits from AI will arise

Part 2 – Independent Work @ Home

1. In order to familiarize you with The Chronicle of Higher Education, see this series of articles on AI and education: How will artificial intelligence change higher ed? Or check out this recent article by Nancy Baron: AI in the classroom is a problem. Professors are the solution. 
2. Use Perusall to annotate Rainie, Lee, J., Anderson. (2024). Experts Imagine the Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040. Imagining the Digital Future Center. https://imaginingthedigitalfuture.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/AI2040-FINAL-White-Paper-2-2.29.24.pdf

Step 3 – Presentations

1. Working collaboratively in small groups, prepare a presentation, using gslides, on the theme from Rainie and Anderson’s report. Share presentation to Course Sandbox
2. Each group will present its presentation

Step 4 – Peer Review

In small groups, share your drafts with your peers, as you wish. Ideally, read parts of your draft out loud to the whole group. That can be chaotic but seriously it’s worth it.

Step 5 – Submission Instructions – Deliverables

1. Upload to Canvas a .pdf version of your annotated bibliography. Be sure your link enables edit-view privileges. If you used AI, archive your chat log in case I need to review it. If you used a GAI tool to author your reflection, keep the chat log archived in case I need to review it. 
2. Upload to Canvas a .pdf version of your argument or provide the url for your video. If you used a GAI tool to author your reflection, keep the chat log archived in case I need to review it. 
3. Upload to Canvas a .pdf version of your peer review memo
4. If you created a video, you do not need to upload a presentation. However, if you created a written argument, upload to Canvas your presentation

Resources