Maybe I simply need more time to learn the ins and outs of generative AI, but every time I try to ChatGPT, Google Bard, or the fancy new Bing, it I find a waste of time. Trying to write prompts that generate something close to the output that I need takes more time than just doing the search or writing whatever I need to write. Maybe I have to explore further uses — outlines, lesson plans, or the like — but so far I am underwhelmed. Are these tools essentially for people who are illiterate? And, at the danger of sounding like an old fart complaining about the decline of civilization, have we come to the point where people are so inarticulate in their writing, have so little ease in communicating, that they prefer to spend hours with slick but bullshitty computer tools instead of just saying, in writing, what they mean to say? (If so, we, as teachers, have ourselves to blame, don’t we?)
