When ChatGPT launched a year ago, headlines flooded the internet about fears of student cheating. A pair of essays in The Atlantic decried “the end of high-school English” and the death of the college essay.” NPR informed readers that ”everybody is cheating.” Meanwhile, Teen Vogue ventured that the moral panic ”may be overblown.” The more measured tone in Teen Vogue tracks better with preliminary findings from our 2023 survey that examined attitudes and feelings about artificial intelligence among college faculty who teach writing.

Survey responses revealed that AI-related anxieties among educators around the country are more complex and nuanced than claims insisting that AI is outright and always bad. While some educators do worry about students cheating, they also have another fear in common: AI’s potential to take over human jobs. And as far as teaching, many educators also see the bright side.

They say they actually enjoy using the revolutionary technology to enhance what they do. Our 64-item survey included a scale of AI anxiety and was conducted March 2-31, 2023. The 99 survey respondents included faculty, writing program administrators and others interested in the teaching of writing. More than 71% worked in the disciplines of English, writing or rhetoric, and the sample represented all types of institutions, from small liberal arts colleges to large research universities and everything in between. AI anxiety among writing instructors is complicated. While 89% of survey participants feared “misuse” by students, misuse means different things to different people. Specifically, less than half of respondents - 44% - were “concerned” or “very concerned” about students turning to AI to compose entire essays. Only 22% were “very concerned” about students relying on such technologies to “cowrite” their essays without providing appropriate attribution. Additionally, less than half - 42% - reported they were “concerned” or “very concerned” about the need to revise university honor codes and plagiarism policies in light of AI. And only 25% said their institutions should enforce increased plagiarism detection through apps and websites such as Turnitin. Regardless of whether respondents had deep worries or mild concerns, only 13% favored any ban on AI entirely in college courses and classrooms.

Instead, instructors reported varying levels of anxieties about a range of issues, including learning how to use AI tools and job security. As one participant wrote, “While I want students to compose original works in my writing courses, I see no reason to ban them from using AI tools at their disposal during the writing process.” Survey participants had wide-ranging reactions to the prospects of AI replacing their jobs as writing instructors. At times, their feelings seemed conflicted, depending on the circumstances and conditions described in our survey questions.

As some critics have already suggested, there is genuine fear about colleges using AI not as a means to enhance the work of instructors, but instead to replace them. For instance, more than 54% of respondents “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that the prospect of AI technology replacing human jobs scared them. And 43% “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they were anxious over the possibility of becoming unable to keep up with advances in AI techniques and products. The anxiety among tenured and tenure-track faculty was significantly lower than that of adjunct instructors, graduate teaching assistants, instructors and administrative faculty and staff. This implies that college writing instructors who are most likely to fear losing their jobs because of AI are those who are most vulnerable anyway. (AP)