The generative “AI” hype cycle has been at peak hype for the past month or so and it follows completely predictable tech patterns. Hypers tout all the amazing miraculous things that will be possible; doubters wonder aloud whether these things will fail to deliver on their utopian promises (because these things always fall short of their utopian promises), and most of the obvious consequences and outcomes get overlooked.

A recent opinion piece in WaPo by journalist Markham Heid tackles the ChatGPT teacher freakout by proposing handwritten essays as a way to blunt the inauthenticity threat posed by our emerging AI super-lords. I've seen the requisite pushback on this piece around accessibility, but I think the bulk of criticism (at least what I've seen) still misses the most important point. If we treat writing assignments as transactional, then tools like ChatGPT (or the emerging assisted writing players, whether SudoWrite or Lex, etc.) may seem like an existential threat. Generative AI may well kill off most transactional writing (not just in education. I suspect boilerplate longform writing will increasingly be a matter of text completion). I have no problem with that. But writing as part of pedagogy doesn't have to be and probably shouldn't be solely transactional. It should be dialogic, and as such, should always involve deep engagement with the medium along with the message. ChatGPT just makes urgent what might have otherwise been too easy to ignore.