Tag: technology

One thing I know about my colleagues is that we have an unrelenting love affair with control. We thrive on reliability, routine, and preparation. These three pillars are our holy trinity—without them, the classroom descends into anarchy. And despite the tech tidal waves that keep crashing against us, we cling to these pillars like castaways on a raft.

Remember when smartphones hijacked human attention spans fifteen years ago? We adapted—begrudgingly—when our students started caring more about their screens than us. Our power waned, but we put on our game face and carried on. Then came the digital migration: Canvas, Pronto, Nuventive—all those lovely platforms that no one asked us if we wanted. We learned them anyway, with as much grace as one can muster when faced with endless login screens and forgotten passwords.

Technology never asks permission; it just barges in like an unwelcome houseguest. One morning, you wake up to find it’s moved in—like a freeloading uncle you didn’t know you had. He doesn’t just take over the guest room; he follows you to work, plops on your couch, and eats your sanity for breakfast. Now that homeless uncle is ChatGPT. I tried to evict him. I said, “Look, dude, I’ve already got Canvas, Pronto, and Edmodo crammed in the guest room. No vacancy!”

But ChatGPT just grinned and said, “No problem, bro. I’ll crash rent-free in your head.” And here he is—shuffling around my brain, lounging in my workspace, and making himself way too comfortable. This time, though, something’s different. Students are asking me—dead serious—if I’m still going to have a job in a few years. As far as they’re concerned, I’m just another fossil ChatGPT is about to shove into irrelevance.

And honestly, they have a point. According to The Washington Post article, “ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners,” AI might soon rearrange the workforce with all the finesse of a wrecking ball. Economists predict this upheaval could rival the industrial revolution. Students aren’t just worried about us—they’re terrified about their own future in a post-literate world where books collect dust, podcasts reign supreme, and “good enough” AI-generated writing becomes the standard.

So, what’s the game plan for college writing instructors? If we’re going to have a chance at survival, we need to tackle these tasks:

1. Reassess how we teach to highlight our relevance.
2. Identify what ChatGPT can’t replicate in our content and communication styles.
3. Design assignments that AI can’t easily fake.
4. Set clear boundaries: ChatGPT stays in its lane, and we own ours.

We’ll adapt because we always do. But let’s be real—this is only the first round. ChatGPT is a shape-shifter. Whatever we fix today might need a reboot tomorrow. Such is life in the never-ending tech arms race. 

The real existential threat to my job isn’t just ChatGPT’s constant shape-shifting. No, the real menace is the creeping reality that we might be tumbling headfirst into a post-literate society—one that wouldn’t hesitate to outsource my teaching duties to a soulless algorithm with a smarmy virtual smile.

Let’s start with the illusion of “best-sellers.” In today’s shrinking reader pool, a “best-seller” might move a tenth of the copies it would have a decade ago. Long-form reading is withering on the vine, replaced by a flood of bite-sized content. Tweets, memes, and TikTok clips now reign supreme. Even a 500-word blog post gets slapped with the dreaded “TL;DR” tag. Back in 2015, when I had the audacity to assign The Autobiography of Malcolm X, my students grumbled like I’d asked them to scale Everest barefoot. Today? I’d be lucky if half the class didn’t drop out before I finished explaining who Malcolm X was.

Emojis, GIFs, and memes now serve as emotional shorthand, flattening language into reaction shots and cartoon hearts. If the brain dines too long on these fast-food visuals, it may lose its appetite for gourmet intellectual discourse. Why savor complexity when you can swipe to the next dopamine hit?

In this post-literate dystopia, autodidacticism—a fancy word for “learning via YouTube rabbit holes”—is king. Need to understand the American Revolution, Civil War, and Frederick Douglass? There’s a 10-minute video for that, perfectly timed to finish as your Hot Pocket dings. Meanwhile, print journalism decomposes like roadkill, replaced by podcasts that stretch on for hours, allowing listeners to feel productively busy as they fold laundry or doomscroll Twitter.

The smartphone, of course, has been the linchpin of this decline. It’s normalized text-speak and obliterated grammar. LOL, brb, IDK, and ikr are now the lingua franca. Capitalization and punctuation? Optional. Precision? Passé.

Content today isn’t designed to deepen understanding; it’s designed to appease the almighty algorithm. Search engines prioritize clickbait with shallow engagement metrics over nuanced quality. As a result, journalism dies and “information” becomes a hall of mirrors where truth is a quaint, optional accessory.

In this bleak future, animated explainer videos could take over college classrooms, pushing instructors like me out the door. Lessons on grammar and argumentation might be spoon-fed by ChatGPT clones. Higher education will shift from cultivating wisdom and cultural literacy to churning out “job-ready” drones. Figures like Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, and Gabriel García Márquez? Erased, replaced by influencers hawking hustle culture and tech bros promising “disruption.”

Convenience will smother curiosity. Screens will become the ultimate opiate, numbing users into passive compliance. Authoritarians won’t even need force—just a well-timed notification and a steady stream of distraction. The Convenience Brain will replace the Curiosity Brain, and we’ll all be too zombified to notice.

In this post-literate world, I would inevitably fully expect to be replaced by a hologram—a cheerful AI that preps students for the workforce while serenading them with dopamine-laced infotainment. But at least I’ll get to say “I told you so” in my unemployment memoir.

Perhaps my rant has become disconnected from reality, the result of the kind of paranoia that overtakes you when ChatGPT has been living rent-free inside your brain for too long. 

Standing in front of thirty bleary-eyed college students, I was deep into a lesson on how to distinguish a ChatGPT-generated essay from one written by an actual human—primarily by the AI’s habit of spitting out the same bland, overused phrases like a malfunctioning inspirational calendar. That’s when a business major casually raised his hand and said, “I can guarantee you everyone on this campus is using ChatGPT. We don’t use it straight-up. We just tweak a few sentences, paraphrase a bit, and boom—no one can tell the difference.”

Cue the follow-up from a computer science student: “ChatGPT isn’t just for essays. It’s my life coach. I ask it about everything—career moves, crypto investments, even dating advice.” Dating advice. From ChatGPT. Let that sink in. Somewhere out there is a romance blossoming because of AI-generated pillow talk.

At that moment, I realized I was facing the biggest educational disruption of my thirty-year teaching career. AI platforms like ChatGPT have three superpowers: insane convenience, instant accessibility, and lightning-fast speed. In a world where time is money and business documents don’t need to channel the spirit of James Baldwin, ChatGPT is already “good enough” for 95% of professional writing. And therein lies the rub—good enough.

“Good enough” is the siren call of convenience. Picture this: You’ve just rolled out of bed, and you’re faced with two breakfast options. Breakfast #1 is a premade smoothie. It’s mediocre at best—mystery berries, more foam than a frat boy’s beer, and nutritional value that’s probably overstated. But hey, it’s there. No work required.

Breakfast #2? Oh, it’s gourmet bliss—organic fruits and berries, rich Greek yogurt, chia seeds, almond milk, the works. But to get there, you’ll need to fend off orb spiders in your backyard, pick peaches and blackberries, endure the incessant yapping of your neighbor’s demonic Belgian dachshund, and then spend precious time blending and cleaning a Vitamix. Which option do most people choose?

Exactly. Breakfast #1. The pre-packaged sludge wins, because who has the time for spider-wrangling and kitchen chemistry before braving rush-hour traffic? This is how convenience lures us into complacency. Sure, you sacrificed quality, but look how much time you saved! Eventually, you stop even missing the better option. This process—adjusting to mediocrity until you no longer care—is called attenuation.

Now apply that to writing. Writing takes effort—a lot more than making a smoothie—and millions of people have begun lowering their standards thanks to AI. Why spend hours refining your prose when the world is perfectly happy to settle for algorithmically generated mediocrity? Polished writing is becoming the artisanal smoothie of communication—too much work for most, when AI can churn out passable content at the click of a button.

But this is a nightmare for anyone in education. You didn’t sign up for teaching to coach your students into becoming connoisseurs of mediocrity. You had lofty ambitions—cultivating critical thinkers, wordsmiths, and rhetoricians with prose so sharp it could cut glass. But now? You’re stuck in a dystopia where “good enough” is the new gospel, and you’re about as on-brand as a poet peddling protein shakes at a multilevel marketing seminar.

And there you are, gazing into the abyss of AI-generated essays—each one as lifeless as a department meeting on a Friday afternoon—wondering if anyone still remembers what good writing tastes like, let alone hungers for it. Spoiler alert: probably not.

This is your challenge, your Everest of futility, your battle against the relentless tide of Mindless Ozempification. Life has oh-so-generously handed you this cosmic joke disguised as a teaching mission. So what’s your next move? You could curl up in the fetal position, weeping salty tears of despair into your syllabus. That’s one option. Or you could square your shoulders, roar your best primal scream, and fight like hell for the craft you once worshipped.

Either way, the abyss is staring back, smirking, and waiting for your next move.

I was in my late fifties when the Covid lockdown forced me to figure out how to teach college writing online. Picture me scrambling like a headless chicken, trying to cram my course content into Canvas Modules and somehow create “student engagement” without turning my class into a glorified correspondence course. I didn’t whine—thankful, at least, that I could work from the safety of my cocoon while everyone else was busy losing their minds, juggling the chaos of the ever-mutating pandemic.

I completed a ten-week course on making online classes engaging, a challenge that felt a bit like coaching Dorothy and Toto along the Yellow-Brick Road. The students start off in Canvas, as lost as Dorothy in MunchkinLand, and my role, apparently, is to guide them along that winding, glitch-riddled road through all the trials of digital Oz. From the outset, I had to assume they’d be staring at their screens with a mix of dread and confusion—no teacher hovering nearby to reassure them, no calming voice to say, “Yes, you’re on the right track,” when they feared their uploaded assignment might not follow directions. And then, of course, there’s the matter of grades. For an anxious student, a low score notification feels less like feedback and more like the academic version of opening a FedEx package only to find a smelly sock inside.

I did everything I could to make Canvas feel like a safe zone. If students botched an upload, I’d let them try again without a penalty. Finding the right balance in directions was its own adventure: too many instructions, and it’s like staring at the cockpit of a 747, baffling and overwhelming. Too few, and they’re adrift without a compass. I also worked hard to break down each writing assignment into manageable steps, taking a page from the DMV playbook. At the DMV, there’s no mystery—big yellow signs point you to “Station 1,” “Station 2,” and so on. My goal? Make Canvas as easy to navigate as the DMV steps but minus the endless lines and bureaucratic misery.

The pandemic taught me that online education is a different animal than face-to-face teaching. Here, I’m not just a teacher but a guide, a cheerleader, and the technical help desk, ushering students through the labyrinthine modules and dodging their inevitable worries about formatting and deadlines. My goal? To help them make it to the other side of the digital Land of Oz without clicking their heels three times and disappearing from Canvas forever.

When we returned to in-person teaching, masks on and vaccination cards at the ready for safety checks, I assumed I’d be back to a full schedule of face-to-face classes, delivering sixteen hours of lectures each week for my four sections of college composition. Instead, student demand for online classes held strong. As a result, my new schedule shifted to two online courses and two hybrid courses meeting only once a week. My in-class lecturing dropped to just four hours weekly, and, truth be told, I didn’t mind. Teaching four-hour weeks rather than sixteen was more manageable at this point in my life. 

With this new format, I knew I’d need to stay sharp in the online teaching world. But just when I got a handle on Canvas, I faced an even bigger challenge to my teaching–AI. Around 2022, my students started throwing around the name ChatGPT like it was the Second Coming, and suddenly, I found myself knocked back on my heels. But instead of morphing into the cranky old man shaking his fist at the apocalypse, I found myself in awe of this technological sorcery. It was like someone parked a glowing UFO in my driveway and left the keys.

Naturally, I did what any self-respecting writer would do—I took it for a spin. And let me tell you, this wasn’t just some flashy gimmick. It was a literary jet engine strapped to my prose, launching me into the stratosphere of seemingly unlimited possibilities. AI became my performance-enhancing drug, pumping my writing into an Arnold Schwarzenegger-esque “most muscular” pose. And let’s be honest—there’s no way to stuff this genie back into its bottle.

But it wasn’t just me grappling with this disruptive technological beast; my students had to wrestle with it too. It wasn’t enough for them to simply dabble in AI—they needed to master it. I knew, deep down in my coffee-stained soul, that it was my duty to teach them how to wield this digital superpower ethically and effectively. After all, they weren’t just competing against each other anymore; they were preparing for a future job market where AI would be as essential as a stapler—an indispensable tool for saving time and money. To leave them unequipped would be nothing short of educational malpractice.

Two years of mindlessly binging on ChatGPT like a glutton at an all-you-can-eat buffet have brought me to a harsh realization: there are two distinct breeds of AI users. The first group is the Hamburger Helper crowd. To explain this, I must first take you back to the 1970s, when Hamburger Helper—an unholy mix of dried potatoes, peas, and cornstarch—was the go-to for my exhausted mother. She never served it with a smile or a flourish; no, it was the grim “I’m too tired to cook, so this will have to do” meal. She’d look at me with glazed eyes and mutter, “Sorry, Jeff, it’s going to be Hamburger Helper tonight.” In other words, it was a culinary last resort—a one-skillet concoction born of fatigue and resignation. 

Over time, Hamburger Helper became less about necessity and more about convenience. It wasn’t a moment of joy; it was a surrender to mediocrity, a reluctant capitulation to convenience at the expense of culinary standards. And this, my friends, is the perfect metaphor for the Hamburger Helper approach to using AI. Most AI users approach the tool with the same defeated attitude: “Just whip up something for me, and I’ll deal with the aftermath later.” These folks create work that is as appetizing as a soggy, expired burger, then slap some AI-generated lipstick on it, thinking they’ve made it presentable. They fool themselves into thinking this will be enough to pass as something worthy of attention—but it’s ultimately forgettable. This is the lowest form of AI use, no more groundbreaking than relying on a spell-checker. It’s been done before with Grammarly and other tools. Those who adopt this approach are destined to lead a life of mediocrity and quiet despair, wallowing in a sea of well-polished yet hollow work.

As a college writing instructor who wants and needs to be relevant in the AI Age, I have to discourage students from using the following feeble methods in what I call the Hamburger Helper Approach, leading to a lifeless, mediocre outcome:

1. Spell-Check Substitution  

   Using AI purely to catch typos and minor grammar mistakes, as if it were nothing more than an over-glorified spell-checker.

2. Synonym Swaps  

   Asking AI to replace a few words with fancier synonyms, hoping it’ll make the writing sound sophisticated without adding any actual depth.

3. Intro and Conclusion Generators 

   Letting AI crank out generic introductions and conclusions that could fit any essay, giving the illusion of structure without genuine insight.

4. Polishing Bland Ideas  

   Feeding AI lackluster content and using it to simply smooth out the sentences, dressing up empty thoughts in polished prose.

5. Filler Paragraph Production 

   Using AI to churn out long-winded but meaningless filler paragraphs, padding word count without adding substance.

6. Rehashing Clichés  

   Prompting AI to layer clichés over every paragraph, resulting in writing that’s formulaic and as stale as week-old bread.

7. Overusing Pre-Set Templates  

   Relying on AI to generate responses based on rigid templates, so the writing lacks any original thought or personal voice.

8. Generating Fake Transitions  

   Inserting AI-generated “transition sentences” that sound smooth but connect ideas as awkwardly as puzzle pieces from different boxes.

9. Blind Acceptance of AI Output  

   Copying and pasting AI suggestions without question, as if the AI’s word is law, resulting in sterile, uninspired text.

10. Avoiding Research  

   Asking AI to generate “facts” instead of doing actual research, with signal phrases, quotations, paraphrases, and close textual analysis, creating a paper full of broad, generic statements without accuracy or depth.

These methods rely on AI to add surface polish rather than meaningful improvements, creating writing that’s technically correct but creatively lifeless—perfect for those satisfied with mediocrity. 

In spite of its shortcomings, the allure of the Hamburger Helper approach is undeniable. Its mass appeal lies in its speed and efficiency. It delivers exactly what 90% of college instructors and workplace bosses want, 90% of the time. The rise of this approach isn’t hard to understand: it’s the standard currency of information now. We’re bombarded with it, and after a while, we become numb to anything better. It lowers the bar so insidiously that we barely notice our defenses weakening or our standards slipping. In fact, the Hamburger Helper approach is so pervasive that I could almost throw up my hands, admit defeat, and quietly await my extinction as a college writing instructor.

But here’s the thing: teaching students to resist this mediocrity is in their best interest. It saves them from the fate of becoming bland, replaceable functionaries, filing TPS reports in some forgotten office. Instead, it steers them toward excellence, helping them develop a distinctive writing voice and the self-confidence that comes from original thought. The truth is, sinking into the Hamburger Helper approach is a form of self-abasement. It’s a cheap way out, one that carries the silent shame of knowing you’re squandering your potential. With these counterarguments in mind, I have to guide my students toward a better way to use AI—one that doesn’t turn their writing into lifeless mush but instead pushes them toward something real, something worth saying.

So if we ditch the Hamburger Helper approach, what is the alternative? In my experience with AI-writing platforms like ChatGPT, there is a meaningful engagement you can achieve provided you do the preparation work. Just as a concert pianist would be a worthless complement to an orchestra if they didn’t first master Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto, a writer is a worthless complement to ChatGPT if they didn’t do the necessary preparation. With this in mind, we will call the opposite of the Hamburger Helper approach, the Orchestra approach where you and ChatGPT join forces to make beautiful music.

This is when AI goes full Beethoven, but—here’s the twist—you have to know how to conduct the orchestra. You can’t just wave a wand and hope for Mozart; you need the writing chops of a virtuoso to coax something sublime out of the AI. And this is the approach that’s going to throw a wrench into every corner of the world—from jobs to education to entertainment. This is what will send the gatekeepers running for cover and disrupt industries like a tsunami.

The irony here? AI doesn’t make writing easier for the lazy; it makes it better for the diligent hard workers. If you really want to harness AI’s full potential, you need more talent, not less. The future isn’t for the Hamburger Helper crowd slapping together half-baked essays; it’s for the maestros who can orchestrate brilliance with AI as their partner in crime. Advanced writing won’t just be useful—it’ll be essential. If you’re only using AI to dress up your expired burger meat, you’re missing out on the true feast.

Wanting my students to use ChatGPT effectively, I knew I’d have to teach them the 10 Effective User Principles for ChatGPT:

1. The Prompt Precision Principle: The clearer and more specific your prompt, the better ChatGPT can deliver. Vague prompts lead to vague responses. Guide it with exact needs, tone, audience, rhetorical objectives, and desired style for high-quality output. For example, instead of asking ChatGPT a general question like, “Help me write an introduction about social media,” try refining it with specific details: “I need a concise, engaging introduction for an argumentative essay targeting college students about the impact of social media on mental health. I want a balanced, thought-provoking tone that acknowledges both the positive and negative aspects of social media use, while setting up my thesis that it’s essential for users to practice mindful engagement to protect their well-being.” This precise prompt provides clear direction on tone, audience, purpose, and style, giving ChatGPT the context it needs to deliver a focused and relevant response.

2. The Refinement Principle: Treat ChatGPT responses as a rough draft, not a final product. Quality improves with iterative editing and critical review, just like any traditional writing process. You might find you have to revise your manuscript a dozen times before it reaches your standards. Learning how to revise by critically evaluating the writing and refining your editing prompts forces you to engage with the writing process in ways that are far deeper than if you never used a tool like ChatGPT. 

3. The Context Clarity Principle: Provide ChatGPT with relevant background or context for complex assignments. ChatGPT should know who you are, what your level of writing proficiency is, what you need to know to improve your writing, what kind of objectives you have for your writing task, and how willing you are to make several revisions. If it understands the assignment’s framework, it’s more likely to generate a relevant, cohesive response. For example, suppose you’re drafting an argumentative essay on climate policy for an advanced environmental studies class. Instead of simply asking ChatGPT, “Help me write an argument about climate policy,” try this: “I’m an undergraduate environmental studies student writing an argumentative essay for a course on global climate policy. My current writing level is intermediate, and I struggle with making my arguments nuanced and cohesive. My objective is to present an argument that explores both the economic and ethical implications of implementing a carbon tax. I’d like suggestions that will help me elevate my analysis, and I’m open to making multiple drafts to improve clarity and depth.” With this setup, ChatGPT understands your level, goals, and willingness to refine, increasing its chances of producing responses that align with your needs and help you improve your work in meaningful ways.

4. The Realness Check Principle: Remember that ChatGPT lacks true comprehension. Cross-check any facts or references it supplies; its “confidence” is an illusion of accuracy and can lead to misleading or outright incorrect information. There is currently a tendency for ChatGPT to write eloquent prose that says nonsense or fluff in the process of padding a writing sample. A lot of times this padding is called “AI detritus.” 

5. The Critical Input Principle: Feed ChatGPT with specific themes, examples, or points you want covered in your response. The more thought you bring to what you want it to emphasize and create specific essay structures, the more targeted and purposeful its answers. This is why it’s important to know expository modes like cause-and-effect analysis, process analysis, comparison and contrast, argumentative Toulmin structure, refutation structure, and so on. 

6. The Creativity Booster Principle: Don’t limit ChatGPT to surface-level work. Push it to brainstorm ideas, offer counterpoints, complicate argumentative claims, or suggest new approaches—use it as a springboard for creativity rather than a formulaic shortcut. For example, let’s say you’re writing a paper on the ethics of AI in the workplace. Instead of just asking ChatGPT for a summary of common arguments, prompt it to offer unexpected counterpoints or to brainstorm unique perspectives. For example, ask it, “What are some lesser-known ethical concerns about AI in the workplace?” or “Suggest a few unconventional solutions to address job displacement caused by AI.” By pushing ChatGPT to dig deeper, you’re not just outsourcing ideas—you’re using it as a tool to expand your own thinking, helping you approach the topic in a richer, more nuanced way.

7. The Structure Control Principle: Use ChatGPT to structure and outline but bring your own voice and expertise to the core writing. Relying on it for organization can be helpful, but the details need your personal imprint for authenticity. Only through regular reading and your own writing–absent of ChatGPT–can you cultivate what I call a “strong authorial presence.” 

8. The Feedback Filter Principle: Ask ChatGPT to critique your work, but take its suggestions with a critical eye. Not all feedback will be accurate or relevant, so be selective about what improvements you implement.

9. The Authenticity Principle: Your voice should guide the final product. ChatGPT can help with flow, grammar, or idea expansion, but let your unique perspective and style dominate the end result, ensuring the work truly feels like yours. You don’t develop a unique voice over night. It takes years of deep work and solitude–reading and writing on your own–to achieve it. 

10. Prep Payoff Principle: Finally, realize that ChatGPT is only a valuable tool if you adhere to the preparation described above. Asking ChatGPT to write an essay out of thin air based on an instructor’s prompt is futile. The more complete your first draft, the more ChatCGPT can help you with revision process using the techniques described above. In other words, the more effort up front, the more impressive the writing out back.

Believing ChatGPT is some kind of wish-granting genie that’ll churn out flawless results on command isn’t just naive—it’s absurd. Approach ChatGPT with a sense of respect, if not a touch of healthy skepticism. This isn’t some magic pixie dust; it’s a disruptive tool, powerful and versatile, much like the personal computer that changed the world decades ago. Like all tools, its impact is determined by the skill of the person wielding it. You can use it to wander mindlessly through trivia and distractions, or you can turn it into a vehicle for genuine insight, scientific breakthroughs, and brilliant content. In the end, the tool is only as sharp as the hand that guides it.

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.