Opinion | Sorry, Sam Altman, A.I. Is Not Good at Real Writing

I was grading assignments for an undergraduate course in memoir writing when I experienced a severe crisis of faith regarding the future — of academia, of writing, of thinking. I’d asked my students to write about an obsession, telling their life story through the lens of a pop-culture fixation. This assignment invariably produces a few surprising, insightful and energetic pieces from students who’ve never been asked to take their own interests seriously before. This time, however, I…