With ChatGPT, we must teach students to be editors (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed

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A few months ago, I was let go from my side gig, writing content-driven advertising for a car services–related company. As a composition instructor and sometime creative writer, I admit to being stung by the email informing me “that we’re making some changes to our content priorities and production volume, and unfortunately, we won’t be able to offer you hours after this week.” After all, I had been so dutiful about my research and my writing. It didn’t help that the editor who fired me was only slightly older than most of my students.

Later, after a few email exchanges with her, I began to wonder if I’d been replaced by an artificial intelligence writing program. Grudgingly, I had to agree that an AI bot likely could do my job more efficiently. As my side gig ground on, my editor kept demanding that I churn out articles in about 20 minutes. I was being paid $25 an hour to write three short articles on topics related to car care and travel. Problem was, it was taking me more than 20 minutes to produce stories on topics such as “How can you replace an EGR valve?” and “Where’s a 2012 Mini Cooper’s battery location?” Perhaps I was too dutiful, but I always wanted to write accurate copy that read well while also staying on the right side of Google’s SEO rules. And not being a car mechanic, well, of course I could have been replaced by an AI bot. It made total sense.

I’m going to take a bit of a leap and assert that yes, AI writing programs...

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