AI-assisted writing is common because writing is hard

A week ago it came to light that UC Berkeley math professor Zvezdelina Stankova, who went viral in an August 15th essay deploring the poor preparedness of some of her students, actually used AI for her essay. The article was flagged by the AI detector Pangram as 33% AI-generated or AI-assisted writing. A similar result was found in a June open letter from STEM faculty advocating for standardized testing. “The faculty team and a number of journalists worked intensively on my draft over a period of three weeks with multiple drafts, meetings,” Stankova said in an email. She added that she used AI to help edit the piece but that the article is the result of “several hundred person-hours of intensive human work and deliberation, of which about 80 hours are my own.” Her argument still stands. I think it does detract a bit from her credibility. Here, she’s taking a moral high ground, when that ground is soft. If you want to use AI, fine, but accusing others of being lazy or unprepared,…