Writing an essay without using AI

is apparently "difficult". I am not sure how else to put it but the two boys talking about it assured me this was actually true.

I was in the local "cheap" shop - the sort of place which sells the sort of things you can buy from companies like Temu or Shein but are there for you to actually see and feel before you buy. For me it is a useful source of things like glue and rubber bands and refills for the stapler. 

It is also full of "keen young people" who need part-time employment. This has been more so recently as the place changed hands. Currently it is a good deal tidier and, in some ways, useful than it was. As I was looking for what I needed I overheard the two boys stacking the shelf in the next aisle and talking. It was clear they were students.

"You know I could just have put some terms in and come up with an answer..."

"Same here..."

"And I reckon some of the others did. They all came up with the same sort of arguments."

"Same in my group..."

"Did you try asking..."

And so the conversation went on. I stopped trying to pretend I was not listening because these two boys really are very nice lads indeed. One of them told me to stay where I was and fetched me a trolley the other day. The other asked if I would like him to reach something from the top shelf. 

They saw me and guessed I had been listening. Then they told me they had both been in groups which had been set the same question. They had written answers without consulting AI and then by consulting AI. The differences were obvious. It is clear both boys are very intelligent and one of them in particular had tried testing AI to see how far he or it could go. 

"It looks like it's thinking but it isn't thinking. It sounded a bit weird ...if you know what I mean? one of them told me.

I think I do know what he means. I had to come up with a way of putting a counter-argument last week. In order to do it I had written notes and put them into a Venn like diagram. Then I wrote what needed to be written. It worked for me. Out of curiosity I then tried to see if I could get a similar result by putting the same terms into AI.  It might have been convincing if I had not known what I was doing but it did not come across in the same way.  As the boy put it, "it sounded a bit weird". It sounded artificial. It was artificial.

The problem is going to be training us to recognise the difference between the real and the artificial...and how we deal with it.  

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