Why my students are not allowed to use generative AI

Artificial intelligence can assist students with assignments, but at what cost? Philosophy lecturer Roshnee Ossewaarde warns against algorithmic homogenization. ‘I want to see, feel, and experience the soul of my students when I assess an exam, paper, or other piece of work.’

Imagine that your lover or best friend uses Gen AI to create a birthday card for you. How personal would you consider this card? The chances are that you, like me, would not consider it as a personal card at all. In this card you do not recognize the writer. In this card you cannot see, feel the soul, spirit, heart and love of the writer.

You read words written in a manner that is considered to be ‘beautiful’ and ‘normal’ in our present culture. (I will leave the ‘by whom’ question unanswered). For that matter, it is noteworthy that the norm – of what makes a good or beautiful sentence – has changed in the Editor of Microsoft Word over the past twenty years.

I do not want to foster conformism among my students. Our whole social life demands more than enough conformism from us: how we dress, eat, and maintain our friendships and relationships. This pressure to conform is however not limited to behaviour: our thinking, our way of feeling and experiencing the world is not exempted from this conformism. I do not consider the violent attempts to break free from this pressure through vandalism and contempt for the law and rules as courageous and creative forms of anti-conformism.

My students are not allowed to use Gen AI because I have faith in the uniqueness, particularity, and personality of every one of my students. I want to see, feel and experience the soul of my students when I am reading and grading an exam, paper or other assignments. When I read a thesis, I see the train of thoughts, the struggles, the discoveries and the growth of my student. I consider it to be my responsibility as a teacher to foster and support this process of growth. This is not what Gen AI does. It undermines this process.

Academic writing has been under the pressure of conformism for a long time: the more impersonal it is, the more scientific/academic it is. Gen AI reinforces this cultural trend (indeed, scientific or academic developments are cultural phenomena). But all this is not simply about words and hence changing forms of communication. Writing and thinking – and hence the quality of our writing and the quality of our thinking – are intimately connected.

I gave the example of the Editor of Microsoft Word above. It is significant that he dislikes what he considers to be ‘unclear’ sentences. Like Gen AI, he prefers certain words, and he would like to get rid of certain expressions. And if he succeeds in doing so, he will also destroy the so vulnerable esprit de finesse that was so dear to Blaise Pascal.

Pascal distinguished l’esprit de finesse from l’esprit de géométrie. Human intelligence is characterized by both ‘minds’ or forms of intelligence. L’esprit de finesse enables our intuitive and unmethodical thinking and pondering about the most important things of life.

It seeks subtle languages to express the elusive and nonobjectifiable aspects of human life. It chooses silence when it fails to find the right words. L’esprit de géométrie is fond of logical and methodical, that is, algorithmic reasoning. AI embodies the latter and dislikes unclarity and elusiveness.

_Advertentie.