What are you doing in the writing classroom this semester? theimportantwork.substack.com/p/write-for-...

Glad to see Reuters changed their initial headline but also what's going on with Grok is a great example of why the phrase "AI is here to stay" is a bad argument for embracing any AI status quo; it implies that there are no boundaries of what's acceptable/ no human agency when in fact we need both.

The article suggests they used ChatGPT like a search engine to get list of names and picked one they liked but then it does also contain this dystopian gem: "Hudson is a modern baby in the truest sense — he was named by ChatGPT, a generative artificial intelligence chatbot"

I know many people who ask google questions like this and I have never written anything about Margaret Atwood and here we are.

I know many people who ask google questions like this and I have never written anything about Margaret Atwood and here we are.

Happy New Year! This is a great day to catch up on what we've been doing over at The Important Work. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import...

Happy New Year! This is a great day to catch up on what we've been doing over at The Important Work. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import...

Ah, yes. That well-known "Larry David" problem in writing that I (never) coined since I have never written about him at all. But the thing is, people do use these AI overviews--which is...a problem. (See: futurism.com/artificial-i...)

Ah, yes. That well-known "Larry David" problem in writing that I (never) coined since I have never written about him at all. But the thing is, people do use these AI overviews--which is...a problem. (See: futurism.com/artificial-i...)

Here's another good one (I have never written about Ted Danson at all). (And yes, I know, I could prompt differently but my project right now is to generate a bunch of results based on how people *are* prompting.)

Here's another good one (I have never written about Ted Danson at all). (And yes, I know, I could prompt differently but my project right now is to generate a bunch of results based on how people *are* prompting.)

This is a great example of how google AI overview generates probable rather than factual text. I could potentially have a newsletter of this name that focuses on those topics. But I do not. (But check out Writing Hacks and The Important Work!)

This is a great example of how google AI overview generates probable rather than factual text. I could potentially have a newsletter of this name that focuses on those topics. But I do not. (But check out Writing Hacks and The Important Work!)

So I went to read this article about how AI is taking away jobs and was served the opportunity to bypass the article that was written by a human and instead get the AI summary and that in itself is a story about AI and jobs. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

So I went to read this article about how AI is taking away jobs and was served the opportunity to bypass the article that was written by a human and instead get the AI summary and that in itself is a story about AI and jobs. www.yahoo.com/news/article...

The Important Work is almost a year old! Before we head into the new year, I took stock of our most-read and shared pieces and what I've learned from publishing this newsletter. I hope you'll check it out. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import...

The Important Work is about to turn 1, and I wrote a final post about what I've learned and what resonated with readers. Here, a thread of some of our most read and most shared posts of 2025. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import... /1

5. Danielle Kane and Claire Mason wrote about repurposing blue books for reflective writing: "The beauty of blue books is not that it offers a form of surveillance but that it creates a space for contemplation, creativity, and contemplation." theimportantwork.substack.com/p/blue-books... /6

4. @hchoi.bsky.social wrote about assigning a print book to her engineering students. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/im-making-... / (and then followed up after the experiment: theimportantwork.substack.com/p/we-made-ou... /5

3. Maggie Boyd wrote creating a tool with colleagues at BU to encourages students to reflect before using generative AI. "We want students to maintain agency over their learning, rather than treating AI tools flatly as exterior co-writers." theimportantwork.substack.com/p/pause-befo... /4

2. Another high schooler, William Liang co-authored this piece with high school teacher Liz Rose Shulman about how AI is undermining the relationship between students and teachers. "No one wins in this arrangement," Liang writes. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/ai-is-crea... /3

1. High schooler Sam Barber wrote about the gap between how students are using AI and how teachers are (not) talking about it. "I think a lot of the growing dependence on AI comes from a lack of information and education about artificial intelligence. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/at-my-high... /2

The Important Work is about to turn 1, and I wrote a final post about what I've learned and what resonated with readers. Here, a thread of some of our most read and most shared posts of 2025. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import... /1

The Important Work is almost a year old! Before we head into the new year, I took stock of our most-read and shared pieces and what I've learned from publishing this newsletter. I hope you'll check it out. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/the-import...

Don't know how i missed this: replacement.ai

It might have seemed funny when google AI search informed me that I was Olivia Nuzzi's mother, but of course none of this is funny. www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/art...

It might have seemed funny when google AI search informed me that I was Olivia Nuzzi's mother, but of course none of this is funny. www.ctvnews.ca/atlantic/art...

Vara writes,"In an interview last month, Sam Altman predicted that the future would bring 'a new way to interact with a cluster of ideas that is better than a book for most things.'” In that interview Altman does not elaborate on why we read or why we might value "interact with a cluster of ideas"/1

Vara writes,"In an interview last month, Sam Altman predicted that the future would bring 'a new way to interact with a cluster of ideas that is better than a book for most things.'” In that interview Altman does not elaborate on why we read or why we might value "interact with a cluster of ideas"/1

Make sure to read this from @vauhinivara.bsky.social www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

‪ This is from an article about the UCLA management school but no doubt this is happening a lot. Recs do take time but also... www.theinformation.com/articles/can...

‪ This is from an article about the UCLA management school but no doubt this is happening a lot. Recs do take time but also... www.theinformation.com/articles/can...

This is from an article about the UCLA management school but no doubt this is happening widely but also, the place the student is applying could also put their CV info into a tool like this and generate this letter themselves and so on. www.theinformation.com/articles/can...

From the study. cdn.prod.website-files.com/607724b2ae76...

Another good moment to ask "what problem are we solving" when we add an AI summary to articles that already include an abstract but you don't know it's an AI summary until you read to the bottom of it and also it shows up as the default?

Another good moment to ask "what problem are we solving" when we add an AI summary to articles that already include an abstract but you don't know it's an AI summary until you read to the bottom of it and also it shows up as the default?

Jane Austen used 'however' at the beginning of a sentence, and so can you.

Chatted with ChatGPT 5.2 this evening. I know I'm going to get this sort of thing, but I need to have recent examples, so I sometimes have a new chat. A journey in four posts. /1

Chatted with ChatGPT 5.2 this evening. I know I'm going to get this sort of thing, but I need to have recent examples, so I sometimes have a new chat. A journey in four posts. /1

Disney deal sent me back to Sora curious to know how the guardrails are working. I asked for a video of "The real Alexander Hamilton" singing a song about his job and got...this.

Tried this and the podcast seemed to refer to the story below, but the AI "podcaster" announced they would be discussing "whether or not people with intellectual disabilities should be executed" without mentioning any context until later and it was awful. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Tried this and the podcast seemed to refer to the story below, but the AI "podcaster" announced they would be discussing "whether or not people with intellectual disabilities should be executed" without mentioning any context until later and it was awful. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...

Perplexed by this article *about* an article I wrote. It has a human byline but reads like ChatGPT. scoop.upworthy.com/kid-wrote-to...

Student told me that writing her research paper made her realize how many opinions she has on other topics that she should learn more about before having an opinion and this is one of the many reasons that teaching writing is important even if now that LLMs can create written products.

Student told me that writing her research paper made her realize how many opinions she has on other topics that she should learn more about before having an opinion and this is one of the many reasons that teaching writing is important even if now that LLMs can create written products.

More from this:

Ordered up a "personalized podcast" on the Post app. Apparently I need to check all the sources after I listen to it but I could not find links but also not sure why I would want to do this and so I'm back to my favorite AI-related question: what problem is this solving?

Ordered up a "personalized podcast" on the Post app. Apparently I need to check all the sources after I listen to it but I could not find links but also not sure why I would want to do this and so I'm back to my favorite AI-related question: what problem is this solving?

New this morning in The Important Work, from Babson English prof Shannon Mooney: what the em dash debate can tell us about why students use AI to write their papers--and how she's grappling with that in the classroom. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/chatgpt-an...

New this morning in The Important Work, from Babson English prof Shannon Mooney: what the em dash debate can tell us about why students use AI to write their papers--and how she's grappling with that in the classroom. theimportantwork.substack.com/p/chatgpt-an...