Im a college writing professor. Heres what AI still cant do

In the past few years, AI has wreaked havoc on the education sector. It’s quickly become a multi-billion dollar industry, hailed by some administrators as the future of learning while other faculty scramble to address the fallout, including the rampant cheating that AI chatbots enabled almost overnight. It has felt particularly threatening to the subject I teach—writing—where many students struggle, and the temptation to turn to AI is irresistible.

But paradoxically, the AI invasion hasn’t convinced me that learning to write will is about to become obsolete. I recognize in many of my students the impulse that led me to become a writer: the human need to express oneself and, in so doing, to relate to others. In fact, confronting the possibilities and limits of AI for writing lets me explore with my students why we write...