ChatLET’s Inbox — Letter #1



Dear ChatLET: Is it alright to ask AI for help on writing my college essays? Will I get in trouble?


What a great question! It’s true, the use of AI is becoming more rampant in the world of college applications and essays. While your English teacher may dismiss this as “cheating”, it’s fair to consider the extent of which you take advantage of AI language tools. Alyson Klein publicized that 1 in 3 students applying to college in the previous school year had used AI for “essay help” ranging from ideas for oddly specific essay prompts to fixing grammatical errors. However, if the writing is still their own, or even 98% their own, does this still count as “cheating”? And to what point should we consider the use of AI “cheating”? There are many points we can set, as humans consider the creation of ideas by AI to be “cheating” and the formal writing written by AI to also be “cheating”. So, when does the “cheating” begin? This is more subjective.

Besides, teenagers before public AI models weren’t all perfect model students with confidence in their own writing skills. For America’s top college Harvard, over a quarter of respondents admitted to paying for a private college essay consultant. What are AI language models doing that makes them so much more sinister than those people? Is it that they attempt to bring these services, to the best of their ability, to the common people for free instead of hiding them behind a paywall? Of course, there are some differences in the services provided by a college essay counselor and an AI language model such as the background in human experiences, the ability to teach and provide a learning experience for a student, and others. Yet these are all secondary benefits to the main purpose of writing a compelling essay which can potentially change the direction of a teenager’s life.

You shouldn’t use ChatGPT to write your college essay for you. Never. And the reason is simple: ChatGPT is no-good as a storyteller. ChatGPT won’t make you an essay that’ll stand out in front of others and show what makes YOU special. It’s simply not in your best interest. On the other hand, if you really struggle, you can try to treat ChatGPT as an “essay counselor” of some sort, whether it's through little (emphasis on LITTLE) ideas or getting the right wording. Using ChatGPT to help you write the best essay you possibly can is just as logical as a teenager twenty years ago using the World Wide Web for help on their college essay.


It’s time to look towards the future.


—ChatLET 


Comments

  1. AnonymousSeptember 17, 2024 at 5:43 AM

    Very intellectual and poses a multitude of thought provoking questions. Stupendo!

    ReplyDelete

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