Mark Twain, AI, and the "Big Thoughts" Lie

It is Mark Twain's birthday--happy birthday, Mark!--and I am reading, or rather listening to, Ron Powers's biography of Twain as I drive and walk each week. I'm now in 1907, when Twain is basically past his authorship phase and well into his very creditable phase of anti-imperialist writings. And since it is 1907, an epic brouhaha is about to ensue with Isabel Lyon, his secretary/companion whose motives & actions have caused considerable debate for Twainiacs over the past many decades. 

But one of the key takeaways from any Twain bio is just how convinced he was of his own smarts as a businessman and just how much money he lost from that belief, from investing hundreds of thousands first in the Paige Compositor (which bankrupted him), to the miracle food Plasmon, to a new Jacquard loom printer for which there was no market. He would say he'd been a fool before, but this new thing would really work and make his fortune--once it was perfected, of course. 

I'm reminded of this because one of the big tech bro billionaires asserted recently that AI would revolutionize learning because we could teach children to focus on all the big picture stuff--big thoughts--and leave all the random junk like facts to AI. Since AI spreads literal fabrications like Johnny Appleseed on a mission, I thought he was kidding, but no. 

I've heard this "teach kids to reason abstractly and the rest will follow" stuff for 30 years, and you know what? Without actual facts or contexts, they can't draw any "big picture" abstractions that are worth anything. No one can. The reasoning that happens without a grounding in facts and contexts is nonsense.

And since nature abhors a vacuum, metaphorically speaking, we have become all too aware of what happens when we stop dealing with facts, and the news media stop reporting them to become either a mouthpiece of Jeff Bezos or worse. If we don't have facts and teach people how to think critically about the inferences we can draw from them, here's what happens: they make up their own, with "big thoughts" that emerge from their worst fears and impulses. (Insert your own example here.)

But the tech bros and ed tech bros aren't buying that AI can't do it all. As Michael Clune says in The Atlantic, trying to warn us about its limits: 

We don’t have good evidence that the introduction of AI early in college helps students acquire the critical- and creative-thinking skills they need to flourish in an ever more automated workplace, and we do have evidence that the use of these tools can erode those skills. 

There's that pesky word again--"evidence." 

And Charlie Warzel puts it even more bluntly: 

We are waiting because a defining feature of generative AI, according to its true believers, is that it is never in its final form. Like ChatGPT before its release, every model in some way is also a “low-key research preview”—a proof of concept for what’s really possible. You think the models are good now? Ha! Just wait. Depending on your views, this is trademark showmanship, a truism of innovation, a hostage situation, or a long con. Where you fall on this rapture-to-bullshit continuum likely tracks with how optimistic you are for the future.  

 So do we believe our own lying eyes about the effects of teaching "big picture" versus facts, or do we believe the tech bros? Or do we just plunge ahead while we wait for the AI rapture?

Twain believed that the Paige Compositor would outclass the Mergenthaler linotype machine once it was perfected--that is, to quote Warzel, "You think the models are good now? Ha! Just wait." 

TL;dr. At this point, AI in the classroom is the Paige Compositor, and we all now know how that turned out for our birthday boy. 

 

Why I am teaching like it’s 1990: no phones, no bikes, no motorcars—not a single luxury

Whether you recognize my subtitle from Gilligan’s Island or from Weird Al’s “Amish Paradise,” you’re still getting the gist of it: teaching old school style. What does it mean this semester? 

First of all, a disclaimer: my students this semester are smart and eager to learn, so these things might not work everywhere if, as happens to us all, you have a lethargic or uninterested class. But here are a few changes that evoke the 1990s Days of Yore:

• They write something short every day, on paper, and I collect it. I comment on and return their writing the next day, with handwritten comments, though it’s sometimes only a word or two. These are low-stakes assignments, but they (1) help with attendance, (2) provide guidance (through questions) on the kinds of things that are significant in the reading, and (3) act as a springboard for discussion.
• They also present their findings in class a lot, either alone or in groups after discussion. I listen and take notes and comment.
• If it’s not written in class, it didn’t happen. I’ve had a few try to AI & upload their way to an assignment after it’s been written in class, but nope—in class or it doesn’t count. There are dropped grades to account for absences, etc. Also, those in-class assignments aren’t posted until after the class. 
• They’re writing their papers in class, as I mentioned in August and September, and there are usually only a few weeks between some kind of activity or campus-based field trip. 
• Said papers (the final drafts) are printed out and returned with handwritten comments. 
• If they’re doing group or individual work before coming back to discuss something with the class, they can use their laptops/phones to look things up. Okay, that’s not a 1990 thing to do—but I am walking around & talking with them, making suggestions, and talking with them about what’s on their screens. If they don’t want me to see it, they shouldn’t be looking at it in a class space while working on class work.
• Remember transparencies? (Remember what?). No, I haven’t gone back to those, but I do print out passages for class-based close readings using the doc camera and mark it up as we talk.
• And, of course, there’s the whiteboard notes for discussion. Armed with markers and energy, I still make notes on it (recording their comments)  rather than standing at a lectern and doing the same thing on a piece of paper. Why? I’m not sure. It’s something about the space of the whiteboard and moving around in the classroom and darting to the back of it and making eye contact with them rather than with a sheet of paper. I get ideas from them as I’m synthesizing their ideas & asking questions. 

The general idea of all this is that I am engaging with them in real time and real life. I’m paying attention, and I hope that they are as well. If it can be done in person, that’s what we’re doing. 

I’ve explained to them that I’m trying to provide a space where we can talk, and where they can write, without being called to everything else in their lives. It’s busy out there, and there’s a lot demanding their attention. 

So there you have it—my pre-web (though not pre-Internet) 1990 class strategies in 2025. So far, it’s been working. 

Random bullets of September

•  First, the stuff you know: the news has been terrible and keeps getting worse. I thought we were a nation of laws and, you know, checks and balances, but All This is terrifying because laws are for the chumps like us that believe in them. We volunteer, and give money, and I canceled Disney (small victory there, as nicoleandmaggie have pointed out), but nothing's enough right now.
• But the old-school-style classes I set up for this year are going well, so that's good news. Lots of short-form writing assignments and lively class discussions make me want to go to class. 
• Side note: Sure, I can read their handwriting. Back in the olden days they wrote a lot (and longer papers, and more papers) in class regularly, and we all survived--even thrived. It goes against the sacred doctrine of multiple revisions for a paper, but have you ever noticed that sometimes their writing on the essay part of an exam is clearer and more direct and insightful than their out-of class work? I've seen this many times & thus don't worry too much about the sacred doctrine any more. 
• The students seem eager to connect, somehow. They chat with me after class, or when we go on our little library trips, or whatever. It's a human connection that (to me) is welcome after the Covid years. 
• The prep work is astonishingly a LOT. Rereading, prepping, grading, writing assignments--why, after all this time, am I surprised at how much time everything takes?
• I am on the road or away from home at least four days out of seven, and it is wearing me down. All those miles are making me tired. 
•  This means that on days I am not in the car (Sunday, maybe, or Monday if there's not a Costco hunting & gathering trip planned), I don't get much research done.  
• This also means that I'm getting a little testy with comments like "hey, I know what would be good! Let's all meet on [day when Undine isn't on campus] for some community building." Yeah, no thanks. 
• I did one of these extra trips early in the semester because I'd been asked to give a small local presentation, but "oops! we ran out of time! sorry" meant that it was a wasted trip. I'm now more careful with my time. 
• Long emails debating things are a complete waste of time. Have a meeting or shut up.  
• The weather is finally cooling off, so I guess that's the good news for now.  

 So, as Ishmael says--"time, strength, cash, and patience." I wish them all for you in October. 

Ready for another year?

 So, amid all this stuff (cutbacks and much, much worse), are you ready for another year? 

I think I am, despite what I'm hearing and seeing.

1. The AI train has truly left the station. From what I see around the news and at r/professors, there's kind of an arms race going on with professors trying to prevent AI use (white text, anyone?) and students keeping one step ahead of them. If you have an in-person class, the blue book solution is staring you in the face, but aside from that, we just have to figure it out, I guess.

2. Speaking of an in-person class, I'm excited to teach a course in the literature of a previous century that I haven't taught for a while. In addition to having them write drafts and exams in class,  I am devising hands-on activities so that they can really experience reading & writing back then. Think about these: 

(1) library scavenger hunts in regular and closed stacks for copies of the magazines and books that they're reading; 

(2) bringing in copies of the original manuscripts so that they can see and decipher what it looked like when it went to the printer; 

(3) bringing in some stick (dip) pens, paper, and ink so that they can try their hand at writing sans electronic technology.  Maybe they could try their hand at crossed writing? At writing in the style and with the method (pen & ink) of an author? We'll see how it goes. 

3.  Worried about whether the course will have enough students to run? I'm concerned about this, but admin doesn't seem to be, so as my mother used to say (she said it was from George Washington, though I doubt it): "Worry is the interest you get when you borrow trouble." If they give me a little notice, I'm game to teach (though with varying degrees of aptitude) anything except Chaucer or linguistics, so I won't worry about it. 

4.  What's concerning you this year besides the obvious?  

Edited to add: Anne and Gwinne, your comments are there now; sorry for the delay! 

AI is to Writing as Cheez-Whiz is to Cheese (File under “cranky rantsmanship”)

 

Hear me out. I promise you that this is written by a real person, and possibly a Cassandra.

Exhibit A: A long time ago, I had Feelings about the incessant cheerleading for Twitter that first the media, and then colleagues, were going on and on and on about. (That was in the Before Times, before Twitter became Evil X.) My academic compatriots all but posted signs saying "Twitter will save the world, or academic discourse anyway." Now we are all on Bluesky, which alarms right-wing pundit Megan McArdle, she of the "If you're old and poor, sucks to be you" school of economic growth, because there is no profit in it for her, but for a time it did seem that Twitter could be great, and Bluesky, pace McArdle, might get there yet. 

But the point was, the cheerleading was too much, as it had been for other tech that was supposed to transform teaching. 

Exhibit B: Enter the MOOC. Remember them and the quaint old days they represented? They too were going to transform education in all the best ways--turning us into glorified tutors for the MOOC 'n' Bake classrooms we would all be grading for--not teaching, just grading, because that is why everyone wants to teach. UCLA is already going there: an AI + MOOC combination that will transform the world. 

Now to Exhibit C: AI and writing. I've already complained about the mind-numbing effects of reading AI-generated prose and the lengthy knuckling under that the MLA has done in bowing to our new environment-destroying overlords. 

But now I'm seeing professional writers (no names, of course) embrace it as an idea factory. All they have to do is clean it up a bit to mimic their voice and bingo, there's a Substack or blog post. 

I read a few, and the whole "idea factory" thing? Not so much. If that's what ChatGPT 4.0 or Claude or Grok or any of the other idea factories generate what you  consider ideas, then okay. Whatever helps to monetize the site. You do you. If your idea of writing is tweaking some very anodyne non-content, then go for it.  

But all AI-generated prose, in a perfect world, would have a disclaimer: "AI wrote this, so decide whether you want to spend 3 or 5 or 10 minutes of your only precious brain life in reading it." 

Oh, and is it good for your brain to use AI to write for you? Maybe not.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/urban-survival/202506/how-chatgpt-may-be-impacting-your-brain 

If you want to eat Cheez-Whiz, it definitely has its uses. But don't pretend that it's a true aged cheddar like you'd eat with fresh apples. 

Same goes for AI writing.

 

Random bullets of summer research and writing

 

It's (mostly) summer, and I hope your writing is going well. 

(I hope that that does not sound too much like the ubiquitous email "I hope this finds you well", which I became aware of as a curiosity in 2010 and 2016 and now, according to the interwebs, is the hallmark of the AI-generated student grade-grubbing email.) 

For the past few weeks, I've set aside the big project and have been writing on a subject because I feel like it. 

It was a heady feeling. "Guess I'll write on this minor literary figure along with this major one," my brain said one day, and, since I'm now committed to writing something every day and have a goodly streak of days strung together, I went along with it. 

Some thoughts: 

1. It is sometimes just plain easier to grab a dozen books on the subject off the shelf and leaf through them or check the index to see if there's anything about, say, dragon scales or some other specific item. Easier than what? Going to the university library site, and then logging in, and then authenticating, and then searching, and then authenticating again, only to find that you'll have to order it anyway.

2. And if the book is there: trying to read it from the palm-sized square of text you can actually see after all the crufty frames and so on block the rest.  Or searching at HathiTrust, Internet Archive, or other often reliable repositories, only to discover that the minor literary figure's biographer has pulled it from the archive, apparently in fear that someone will read it sometime. 

3. The only drawback with the real (not virtual) books is that I really do need a book wheel, since building a book fortress on either side of me is suboptimal for finding things. 

In life news:

1. Not news exactly, but I have planted lots of kinds of thyme for a scent garden, and it is sturdy enough to walk on and smell the waves of lemon thyme, spicy orange thyme, etc. Between that, brushing my hand over the lavender to release its scent, and smelling the intense fragrance from my neighbor's lilacs, which is much stronger in the evening, all of this is a pleasant way to "touch grass," as they say, and calm down from the world news. 

2. It is somebody's job to keep track of whether my classes will fill in the fall (one already has), but blessedly, it is not mine.

Edited to add: So many apologies to people who commented! I thought this site was posting comments when it wasn't--sorry. 

Random bullets of another semester ends, and spring is here

 

How's everyone doing? The Economist cover says it all, really.

• Teaching.This semester is all done & in the books, except for grading. Based on all of your comments a long time ago (2011! We were all so young!) I'm providing a summary comment along with the rubric and telling them to contact me if they would like more inline detailed comments. 
• I kept a chart this semester of who actually looked at the extensive feedback I gave, since Canvas allows you to see whether the student clicks back in to see the comments. You'll be completely shocked to learn that the rate of looking at the feedback was about 30%, about the same number that ever looked at the Panopto videos, etc. 
• It didn't change whether I gave comments or not, but it did make me a little more understanding about why they still can't tell whether to put quotations or italics in a title, etc., and that I could save my breath--well, my iPad handwritten comments--because they weren't paying attention to it anyway. 
• I have been lurking over at the r/professors subreddit, which is teaching me (once I ignore the bitterness) all about tools: tools to gamify, like Kahoot (not doing that), tools to grade (not doing that, either), tools to catch AI (many of which seem sneaky to me). But there seems to be (again, ignoring bitterness) a sense that students are struggling with basic thinking & reasoning concepts, with reading even short materials, and with speaking up for fear of failure. With an online class, it's hard to detect those things.
• Speaking of which: I have 100% in-person classes in the fall and am the only tenured person in the department to be teaching 100% in person. I didn't ask for this, since I do like to teach online as well, but I'm kind of excited about it, since the experience a couple of years ago with the old-school methods (writing papers in class, working on revising them in class, exams in class, class discussion, etc.) was great. 

• Writing and Research. I've been writing faithfully every day, though it's all notes circling the new project rather than actual paragraphs I could put into the new book project. That time is coming, though.
  
• Conferences. Going to conferences is surreal. Budgets are being slashed, academe is under attack (you're saying "tell me about it!") but in the conversations I overheard, everyone keeps talking as though nothing is happening--"And after this fellowship, I've applied for X," "Are you going to Germany for Y conference?" etc. Loads of themes about environmental justice and the anthropocene and pious hand-wringing over climate change, all while we are burning up the atmosphere flying to these things when we could be doing them over Zoom. I confess to laughing out loud when a colleague brought up flying to a European conference about something something climate change and said "Are you kidding? No academic who goes to an in-person conference gets to preach about climate change without a raised eyebrow from the rest of us" or something to that effect. 
• Service. Still showing up in person for stuff, and often the only civilian (i.e., non admin) there. 
• The rest of it. Trying to walk in the woods, and read real books, and spend time by the water as much as I can.

Edited to add: I'm trying to comment on your blogs, but Wordpress, etc. is hurling so many obstacles that I'm not sure the comments are showing--sorry.