Writing with AI Tools

Moderator: Micha Edlich

Date: June, 18

Time: 14:15-15:45, C5.122

The release of OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT in late November 2022 has sparked heated debates in higher education and beyond about the possibilities and potential pitfalls of this powerful generative AI and similar tools. As the technology underpinning AI tools continues to improve at a dramatic pace, administrators, faculty, and students try to adjust to the new realities. Many of the consequences for learning, teaching, and doing research are difficult to predict, but it seems clear that these tools are here to stay and will affect the ways in which we write in academia and other professional contexts. Providing some guidance in uncertain times, this workshop focuses on technological, legal, ethical, and pedagogical implications of using AI tools for academic work such as writing research papers. Specifically, we will explore some of the following questions: How can AI tools be used properly and ethically during the writing process? What is their potential, what are their limits, and in which case might they even pose a threat to academic codes of conduct or research ethics? How can we use these tools to foster learning and to develop as writers of academic texts? To find at least preliminary answers to these questions, we will use different strategies—tinkering with AI tools, short inputs by the instructor, and writing and other activities to encourage reflection. Think of this workshop not as a class in a traditional sense but as an event at which curious and open minds explore complex issues in an interactive manner.

Please note that we will not dwell on how these tools work in a technical sense, although an at least metaphorical understanding (to use Jerome Lanier’s and Cal Newport’s approach) is crucial if you are considering using any of current crop of AI tools. I added a few (very accessible and exceedingly well written) texts to myStudy, which introduce you to these tools and walk you through some of the possible implications for people from all walks of life.

The workshop will be accepted as an optional module of the peer writing tutor training offered by Leuphana’s Schreibzentrum / Writing Center.

Registration via myStudy.

Direct link to myStudy (you must first be logged in to myStudy).