Cinemorphosis

Category: Education in the AI Age

  • AN ESSAY MUST RESIST OZEMPIFICATION

    AN ESSAY MUST RESIST OZEMPIFICATION

    The other day I was listening to Howard Stern and his co-host Robin Quivers talking about how a bunch of celebrities magically slimmed down at the same time. The culprit, they noted, was Ozempic—a drug available mostly to the rich. While they laughed about the side effects, such as incontinence, “Ozempic face” and “Ozempic butt,” I couldn’t help but see these grotesque symptoms as a metaphor for the Ozempification of a society hooked on shortcuts. They enjoyed some short-term benefits but the side effects were far worse than the supposed solution. Ozempification was strikingly evident in AI-generated essays–boring, generic, surface-level, cliche-ridden, just about worthless. Regardless of how well structured and logically composed, these essays have the telltale signs of “Ozempfic face” and “Ozempic butt.” 

    As a college writing instructor, I’m not just trying to sell academic honesty. I’m trying to sell pride. As I face the brave new world of teaching writing in the AI era, I’ve realized that my job as a college instructor has morphed into that of a supercharged salesman. And what am I selling? No less than survival in an age where the very tools meant to empower us—like AI—threaten to bury us alive under layers of polished mediocrity. Imagine it: a spaceship has landed on Earth in the form of ChatGPT. It’s got warp-speed potential, sure, but it can either launch students into the stars of academic brilliance or plunge them into the soulless abyss of bland, AI-generated drivel. My mission? To make them realize that handling this tool without care is like inviting a black hole into their writing.

    As I fine-tune my sales pitch, I think about Ozempic–that magic slimming drug, beloved by celebrities who’ve turned from mid-sized to stick figures overnight. Like AI, Ozempic offers a seductive shortcut. But shortcuts have a price. You see the trade-off in “Ozempic face”—that gaunt, deflated look where once-thriving skin sags like a Shar-Pei’s wrinkles—or, worse still, “Ozempic butt,” where shapely glutes shrink to grim, skeletal wiring. The body wasn’t worked; it was bypassed. No muscle-building, no discipline. Just magic pill ingestion—and what do you get? A husk of your former self. Ozempified.

    Similarly, the AI-ification of writing can result in hollow prose, bloated with clichés, overused expressions, and the tell-tale stench of mediocrity. Just as the human body degrades without effort, so too does writing become a skeletal, soulless exercise when handed over to AI without a second thought. The worst part? Those who haven’t cultivated an appreciation for good writing won’t even see the “Ozempic face” in their own work—they’ll be blind to the sagging prose, the AI-induced atrophy, thinking they’ve hit the jackpot when all they’ve really done is plummet into mediocrity. AI-generated essays often parade around like cheap Hollywood knock-offs: shiny on the surface but empty within.

    The Ozempification of our bodies and the AI-ification of our minds lead to the same dismal place: semi-human expression, death by shortcut, and the creeping sense of quiet despair. It’s my job, then, not just to teach students how to write, but to make them see the power of Humanification—that literacy, real authorial presence, and a deep dive into history, philosophy, and the human condition cannot be faked, much less outsourced to machines.

    In this age of spaceships and shortcuts, I must instill in my students a healthy fear of becoming Ozempified, by giving them the 10 Symptoms of Ozempification:

    1. Superficial Appeal, Hollow Content: Just as Ozempic can give the illusion of a slim figure without underlying health, “Ozempified” writing looks polished but lacks depth, insight, or original thought.

    2. Loss of Authenticity: The student’s unique voice is flattened, replaced by the sanitized, flavorless tone typical of AI-generated text, erasing individuality and personality.

    3. Prose Devoid of Muscle: Like Ozempic reducing muscle tone, AI-generated writing can lack structural rigor or complexity, appearing skeletal and underdeveloped.

    4. Reliance on Clichés and Common Phrases: Ozempified writing often leans heavily on clichés, repeating familiar expressions without genuine creativity or fresh perspective.

    5. Stunted Intellectual Development: Just as Ozempic bypasses the work of physical fitness, reliance on AI deprives students of the mental rigor and discipline needed to build critical thinking skills.

    6. Decline in Problem-Solving Ability: By relying on shortcuts, students lose the chance to grapple with complex ideas and find solutions independently, leading to weaker analytical abilities.

    7. Erosion of Self-Confidence: Ozempified students may become insecure in their writing, increasingly dependent on AI “fixes” rather than trusting their voice or ideas.

    8. Inability to Recognize Quality Writing: Just as people can become blind to “Ozempic face,” students may lose the ability to distinguish high-quality, insightful writing from shallow, formulaic prose.

    9. Shortcut Addiction: Once used to AI assistance, students may find it hard to break free, much like dependency on a slimming drug, leading to a vicious cycle of avoidance and over-reliance.

    10. Mediocrity as the New Normal: Ozempification ultimately means settling for less; students accept superficial results over meaningful mastery, leading to a future of bland, uninspired work.

    These symptoms show how shortcuts, whether in writing or physical health, erode both character and quality, leaving behind a hollow version of one’s former self.

    Teaching writing as a form of resistance against Ozempification is to go against the tide. The students and I discuss that our brains are hardwired in a way to make us vulnerable to being Ozempified. Recognizing that the human default leans toward laziness and the path of least resistance, I’ve come to a sobering conclusion: in the age of AI, we’re on a collision course with our own dependency. AI is to writing what Ozempic is to weight loss—a tempting shortcut, a magic wand that promises effortless success. But make no mistake, this shortcut is a Faustian Bargain, a pact with the devil that erodes discipline, creativity, and originality, leaving us as hollow shells of ourselves. Depend too much on AI, and we risk becoming mere Non-Player Characters in our own lives—passive, predictable, and stripped of free will or self-agency. The allure of “quick fixes” may be strong, but the cost is a slow descent into complacency and mediocrity.

    In the Age of AI, we’re not just teaching students to write. We’re teaching them to navigate a digital landscape more tempting than an all-you-can-eat buffet. So, naturally, I had to begin compiling my Compendium of AI Traps, a sort of Eight Warnings for the 21st-century student who might otherwise be tempted to cheat the system and become AI-sloths. By mid-Fall 2024, I had already concocted Eight AI Traps (with some overlap) that needed to be hammered into their brains—preferably with a sledgehammer. Here they are:

    1. The Magic Wand Trap 

       When you first encounter an AI writing tool like ChatGPT, you may become enchanted like Alice in Wonderland, feel the dopamine rush of omniscience, and delude yourself into believing you can conjure masterpieces out of thin air. In truth, the Magic Wand Trap will render you a writing sample about as glorious as a Wikipedia entry–generic, hackneyed drivel that you hope your instructor will pass with a C grade. You need to replace the Magic Wand Fantasy with the Prep Payoff Principle, which states that the harder you work before bringing your manuscript to ChatGPT, the more impressive the AI revision. You need to treat ChatGPT like your personal trainer at the gym. Asking ChatGPT to write an essay by just typing in the professor’s writing prompt is the equivalent of only working out on the day you meet your trainer and showing up reeking of nicotine and whiskey sweat. You’re on a fool’s errand. If you want the AI magic, bring something to the party! Expecting ChatGPT to churn out brilliance while you sit around lazily smoking metaphorical cigarettes and binge-watching trash TV is like showing up to a personal trainer after a week of whiskey shots and zero gym time. You get what you put in. If your brain is marinated in mediocrity, don’t expect AI to perform miracles. Work out those mental muscles first; give ChatGPT something to work with. Be the student that actually trains before the gym session, not the slob who eats junk and expects to flex.

    2. The Ozempification Trap  

       Less egregious than the Magic Wand Trap is the belief that AI with just a little nudging provides a shortcut in your writing just as Ozempic creates a shortcut in weight loss. But these are delusions. Ozempic can work wonders if you eat a healthy diet and exercise, but expecting Ozempic to be the magic pill that takes you to the promised land is not only delusional, it leads to Ozempficication, the childish belief that you don’t have to work hard to achieve desirable results. If you’re looking for a shortcut, you might just cheat yourself into oblivion. Popping Ozempic might melt away your belly, but it’ll also give you “Ozempic face,” the visage of a withered raisin. Likewise, the practice of Ozempification in a college class that requires writing will produce similar dismal results. If you rely solely on AI to write your essays, your writing will shrivel into an insipid, half-baked mess. Congratulations, you’ve officially downgraded yourself to the bottom of the academic food chain. Enjoy your future career in beige cubicles everywhere. The wisest of students will realize that AI writing tools are not an invitation to shortcuts but the opposite: A form of writing engagement that will actually increase your revision and editing process. Thoughtful use of AI pushes you to confront weaknesses, rethink ideas, and polish rough drafts into compelling narratives. Far from a crutch, it forces you into a rigorous rewriting process that enhances your work rather than dilutes it. The sharpest students will use AI not to replace effort but to amplify it, treating it as a partner in the challenging but rewarding task of crafting writing that stands out. The result? Stronger, more original work, and a writer who’s miles ahead of the cut-and-paste crowd.

    3. The AI Addiction Trap  

       Too much time on AI will initially surge your brain with dopamine as it gives you what seems like Superman-like powers, but over time you will experience the flattening effect in which you become numb and your brain turns into mashed potatoes. At some point, you need to unplug. Staring at ChatGPT for too long is like eating processed cheese for months—you can’t taste the real stuff anymore. Take a break, hike in the wilderness, go off-grid, and read real books—ones made of paper. It’s like an artist stepping away from the canvas to see if the mess they’re creating is actually art. Rejuvenate, recalibrate, then dive back into the digital swamp.

    4. The AI Superpower Trap

       You can get high on AI, but be careful—it’s a drug. You start using ChatGPT to polish a paragraph, and suddenly you’re three essays deep, drunk on dopamine, thinking you’re the next Shakespeare. Chill. The euphoria’s real, but so is the crash. Learn to wield this power with caution. Otherwise, you’re going to be one of those guys who stumbles into class thinking they’ve reinvented the English language when really, they’ve just written a B-minus think piece on why kale is overrated. In a state of intoxication, you may fail to see that your AI-essay is full of hallucinations, the jargon for inaccuracies and “AI detritus,” the jargon for the splatter of verbiage that adds your word count but says nothing. 

    5. The AI Mediocrity Trap  

      When AI makes writing feel easy, it’s tempting for you to become complacent, letting your standards slip. This is the worst trap of all: the slide into mediocrity becomes so gradual that you hardly notice it happening. AI can lull you into a state of intellectual passivity, where “good enough” starts to replace “striving for excellence.” But don’t blame AI for your laziness—blame yourself. Laziness has been hardwired into human DNA since time immemorial, and mediocrity is often the default mode. Most of us instinctively follow the path of least resistance. 

    In the AI Age, you’ll face time and financial pressures to rely on AI. If your competition is using it to save time and cut corners, you’ll feel the pressure to do the same. And as more of the business and academic world acclimate to the mediocrity of AI-generated writing—accepting it as the standard form of communication—a kind of Mediocrity Creep will set in, pushing you to compromise without even realizing it. Instead of aspiring to personal excellence, you may unwittingly settle into the role of a middling functionary, stuck in a job filled with soul-sucking memos, pointless emails, and endless HR training videos that make you question your life choices.

    True mastery isn’t just about producing words; it’s about crafting ideas with precision, critical thought, and effort. Avoid the complacency trap by always aiming for improvement, and use AI as just one tool in your broader toolkit for excellence.

    6. The Originality Decay Trap

    Relying too much on AI can dull your creative edge. The more you depend on AI to brainstorm or develop ideas, the more your own originality and unique style take a backseat. Just like muscles atrophy when they’re not used, creativity weakens when you rely on AI to do the heavy lifting. The antidote? Use AI for support, but always reserve time for free-thinking exercises that help your authentic voice stay strong.

    7. The Overconfidence Trap
    When ChatGPT produces coherent, polished text, it’s easy to start believing that the work is flawless or beyond critique. This is the Overconfidence Trap, where students trust AI output without verification, leading to factual errors, logical gaps, or irrelevant information creeping into their writing. Just as you wouldn’t trust a flashy website without credible sources, don’t take AI’s output as gospel. Every output requires scrutiny, revision, and a healthy dose of skepticism.

    8. The Instant Gratification Trap

    In the AI Age, you can get answers in seconds, but this speed comes with a price: it erodes your patience and capacity for deep thought. By letting ChatGPT spoon-feed you ideas, you miss out on the intellectually rich process of wrestling with a complex concept until it finally clicks. Instant gratification from AI is like binge-watching TV series—you get the quick thrill without truly savoring or understanding the nuances. The result? Shallow understanding, minimal retention, and a false sense of accomplishment. Use AI to support, not replace, your intellectual exploration.

  • Teaching College Writing in the Age of AI

    Teaching College Writing in the Age of AI

    Recently, the English Department had one of those “brown bag” sessions—an optional gathering where instructors actually show up because the topic is like a flashing red light on the education highway. This particular crisis-in-the-making? AI. Would writing tools that millions were embracing at exponential speed render our job obsolete? The room was packed with nervous, coffee-chugging professors, myself included, all bracing for a Pandora’s box of AI-fueled dilemmas. They tossed scenario after scenario at us, and the existential angst was palpable.

    First up: What do you do when a foreign language student submits an essay written in their native tongue, then let’s play translator? Is it cheating? Does the term “English Department” even make sense anymore when our Los Angeles campus sounds like a United Nations general assembly? Are we teaching “English,” or are we, more accurately, teaching “the writing process” to people of many languages with AI now tagging along as a co-author?

    Next came the AI Tsunami, a term we all seemed to embrace with a mix of dread and resignation. What do we do when we’ve reached the point that 90% of the essays we receive are peppered with AI speak so robotic it sounds like Siri decided to write a term paper? We were all skeptical about AI detectors—about as reliable as a fortune teller reading tea leaves. I shared my go-to strategy: Instead of accusing a student of cheating (because who has time for that drama?), I simply leave a comment, dripping with professional distaste: “Your essay reeks of AI-generated nonsense. I’m giving it a D because I cannot, in good conscience, grade this higher. If you’d like to rewrite it with actual human effort, be my guest.” The room nodded in approval.

    But here’s the thing: The real existential crisis hit when we realized that the hardworking, honest students are busting their butts for B’s, while the tech-savvy slackers are gaming the system, walking away with A’s by running their bland prose through the AI carwash. The room buzzed with a strange mixture of outrage and surrender—because let’s be honest, at least the grammar and spelling errors are nearly extinct.

    As I walked out of that meeting, I had a new writing prompt simmering in my head for my students: “Write an argumentative essay exploring how AI platforms like ChatGPT will reshape education. Project how these technologies might be used in the future and consider the ethical lines that AI use blurs. Should we embrace AI as a tool, or do we need hard rules to curb its misuse? Address academic integrity, critical thinking, and whether AI widens or narrows the education gap.”

    When I got home later that day, in a fit of efficiency, I stuffed my car with a mountain of e-waste—ancient laptops, decrepit tablets, and cell phones that could double as paperweights—and headed to the City of Torrance E-Waste Drive. The line of cars stretched for what seemed like miles, all of us dutifully purging our electronic skeletons to make room for the latest AI-compatible toys. As I waited, I tuned into a podcast with Mark Cuban chatting with Bill Maher, and Cuban was adamant: AI will never be regulated because it’s America’s golden goose for global dominance. And there I was, sitting in a snaking line of vehicles, all of us unwitting soldiers in the tech wars, dumping our outdated gadgets like a 21st-century arms race.

    As I edged closer to the dumpster, I imagined ripping open my shirt to reveal a Captain America emblem beneath, fully embracing the ridiculousness of it all. This wasn’t just teaching anymore—it was a revolution. And if I was going to lead it, I’d need to be like Moses descending from Mt. Sinai, armed with the Tablets of AI Laws. Without these laws, I’d be as helpless as a fish flopping on a dry riverbank. To face the coming storm unprepared wasn’t just unwise; it was professional malpractice. My survival depended on it.

  • An Essay Is Born of Conversation

    An Essay Is Born of Conversation

    One morning, I found myself performing the sacred rites of domesticity—washing dishes, chugging my second cup of dark roast like it was holy water, and catching snippets of Howard Stern’s radio show in between the clatter of silverware. Stern, the man who’s built an empire on the backs of potty humor and shock jocks, suddenly ditched his juvenile antics for something more personal. What followed nearly made me spit out my coffee. The King of All Media, a man who’s made millions by talking non-stop, admitted that he has no friends. Let that sink in—a professional chatterbox with zero pals. My immediate thought? Here’s a guy so wrapped up in his own celebrity bubble, buried under endless meetings, and tucked away in his cozy cocoon with his family, that he’s practically marinating in his own solitude. 

    Stern’s confession hit me like a cattle prod straight to my existential crisis, jolting me through the cobwebbed back alleys of my own past. Thirty-five years ago, when I was a baby-faced college writing instructor with more hair and less cynicism, my landline phone wasn’t just a device; it was an extra limb, surgically attached to my ear. I wasn’t just talking to friends—I was engaged in marathon sessions of verbal gladiator battles, the kind of conversations where we didn’t just solve world problems, we dissected the universe down to its subatomic particles.

    We’d exchange stories so absurd that Kafka himself would rise from the dead, throw his manuscript in the trash, and declare, “I can’t compete with this!” We laughed like it was an Olympic sport, the kind of laughter that made your ribs ache, your eyes tear up, and your bladder question its loyalty. These were the days when human connection wasn’t just a handshake and a nod; it was full-contact rugby for the soul, complete with head injuries and emotional bruises.

    Back then, phones had cords—literal leashes that tied you to the landline, forcing you to stay in one place for hours, committed to the conversation like it was a prison sentence with your best friend as the warden. Every call was a saga, a never-ending odyssey through every absurd thought, half-baked philosophy, and stupid joke that popped into our heads. There were no text messages to hide behind, no quick emojis to slap onto an awkward silence. You had to talk, and by God, we talked. Hours on end, as if the fate of the cosmos depended on our ability to debate the merits of Star Wars versus Star Trek for the thousandth time.

    Nowadays, those conversations are as dead as pay phones. And my phone? It’s just a sad rectangle of glass and regret, used more for doom-scrolling and sending passive-aggressive emails than for any real human connection. I’ve traded in deep conversations for shallow interactions, where “likes” and emojis have replaced belly laughs and epiphanies. It’s like swapping out a gourmet meal for a microwaved hot dog—and not the good kind.

    Now, fast forward to this glittering dystopia we call the present, where I’ve amassed a veritable army of so-called “friends” across social media platforms—each one just a pixelated speck in the vast, soulless void of the internet. Sure, I might occasionally lob a carefully filtered photo of a family vacation into the void, fishing for a few paltry likes and insincere comments. But once I’ve collected my meager dopamine hits, I retreat right back into my hermit cave, where human interaction is about as rare as a unicorn on a skateboard.

    Despite being fully aware that friendship is as vital to mental health as oxygen is to a scuba diver, many of us somehow marooned ourselves in what I now dub the Howard Stern Condition. This self-imposed exile didn’t happen in a single, dramatic twist of fate. It was a slow, insidious descent into madness, like slipping into a warm bath that turns out to be full of piranhas. 

    One of the dangers of losing real conversations is that our writing is a reflection of the quality of our interactions with others. Spontaneous conversations with surprising twists and turns make for a kind of writing that is vital and engaging. But half-baked conversations degraded into mindless likes and comments creates a kind of algorithmic writing that is anodyne, soulless, and even soul-crushing. Therefore, writing instructors must teach their students how to create essays born of real conversation. The question is how is this done? 

    As I wrestle with ways to create assignments that are born of meaningful conversations, I turn to Sherry Turkle, my oracle in a wilderness dominated by endless scrolling and dopamine hits. For over a decade, Turkle in her books Reclaiming Conversation and Alone Together has sounded alarms on “always-connected lives,” describing a “flight from conversation” and warning us that “we have come to expect more from technology and less from each other.” Now, more than ever, we are “satisfied with less,” content to trade meaningful exchanges for a digital mirage of connection. Turkle’s message is clear: don’t be so mesmerized by the flashing lights and instant feedback of tech, because, eventually, we have to confront the dark side of a life filled with shortcuts, plagued by a shrinking attention span, crumbling conversation skills, and the hollowing out of genuine relationships.

    So what do we call a generation content with a life that’s “good enough”—an existence that leaves us lonely and anxious, yet just distracted enough to stay docile? Maybe zombification fits the bill: living in a deadened state, either oblivious to it or too indifferent to do anything about it. Turkle is holding up a mirror, showing us our zombified selves as we expect more from our devices and less from each other, and urging us to make “course corrections” before we drift any further.

    To make these corrections, Turkle isn’t suggesting we toss our devices out the window. Instead, she wants us to dig deeper, examining how our tech dependence erodes essential qualities like empathy, social cues, and basic human decency. In this screen-saturated stupor, we risk becoming shut-ins, devoid of social skills, and isolated from genuine connection. In bypassing the trial and error of real-world interactions, we lose the etiquette and resilience necessary for life in a cooperative society. With this in mind, I developed a writing assignment that is AI-resistant in that it requires autobiographical content that defies AI generation. It is designed to explore the necessity of face-to-face interactions: 

    Writing Prompt: Lessons in Manners and Etiquette Beyond the Screen

    Think back to a time when you found yourself in a social situation where the importance of manners, etiquette, or unspoken social rules became clear to you in a way that only a real, in-person experience could reveal. In today’s world, where so many interactions are mediated by screens, we can miss out on learning the nuances of human interaction—the kind of lessons that can’t be taught through text messages, social media, or YouTube tutorials. Your task is to recount a time when an in-person interaction left you with a memorable lesson about behavior, respect, or common sense that changed the way you see social dynamics.

    The purpose of this writing prompt is to encourage you to reflect on the unique, irreplaceable lessons that come from real-world social interactions, highlighting the limitations of digital communication. In an age where much of our interaction occurs online, screen-based communication often lacks the depth, nuance, and immediate feedback that face-to-face experiences provide. By recalling a memorable in-person situation where manners or etiquette were essential, you can recognize the invaluable role of direct human contact in developing social skills that can’t be honed through social media alone. This reflection serves as a foundation for understanding how the overuse or misuse of social media might erode these essential skills, weakening our ability to navigate complex social landscapes with sensitivity and respect.

    Assignment Instructions:

    1. Setting the Scene: Start by describing the situation, the location, and the people involved. What was the environment like? Was it a structured setting (like a school or job) or something more informal (a family gathering, gym, party, etc.)? Explain your initial feelings or expectations as you entered the situation. Did you feel comfortable, nervous, or completely out of your element?

    2. The Faux Pas or Mistake: Describe the specific moment or behavior where things started to go sideways. Did you accidentally break an unspoken rule or do something that, in hindsight, seemed awkward or inappropriate? How did people around you respond? Were there direct consequences, or did someone pull you aside to “educate” you on what was expected?

    3. The Lesson Learned: Reflect on what this situation taught you about manners, etiquette, or respect. How did this experience shape your understanding of appropriate behavior? In what ways did it reveal social rules that you hadn’t fully appreciated before? Why do you think this lesson could only have been learned face-to-face, rather than through a screen?

    4. Impact on Your Future Behavior: How has this experience influenced you since? Are you more aware of how you interact in similar situations now? Describe any changes in your approach to social settings and why this particular incident left a lasting impression on you.

    In your response, use specific details and a vivid description of the moment to help the reader experience the lesson with you. Think about why in-person experiences teach us lessons that screen-based interactions often cannot, and consider how this knowledge shapes who you are today. Aim for approximately 500 words, and remember to highlight why this lesson is one that could only be learned through direct, human interaction.