LLMs: When AI Behaves Like a Virus

October 11, 2026October 17, 2026 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

I recently came across an interesting approach to the use of Large Language Models by researchers from Santa Fe Institute, Harvard University, CSIC, and others. The preprint, published on the arXiv preprint repository Sept 3, 2026, has the intriguing title of “Large-Language Models as a Cognitive Virus” and is causing a stir among the AI tech, language and education communities.

I teach writing at the University of Toronto and the use of LLMs by students remains a constant discussion among writing instructors.

The paper by Solé and colleagues models LLM adoption using epidemiological math — uncoupled, coupled, and dependent users, tipping points, and something they call ‘cognitive immunization’. Here’s how they begin their abstract: “Large-language models (LLMs) are rapidly becoming part of human culture, reshaping how information is produced, transmitted, and used. Here we propose that their diffusion can be understood through a viral analogy, with LLM use spreading through populations, becoming embedded in cognitive and cultural practices.”

The paper is basically a math / modeling study drawn from epidemiology with lots of cool and erudite graphs, figures, and equations, but also interesting analogies, such as comparing human language evolution to genetic transmission.

Viral Analogy of LLMs

The viral analogy, Solé at al. argue, does not imply that LLM-human interactions are intrinsically parasitic. Biological viruses, for instance, range from pathogens to mutualists and evolutionary partners. The effects of LLMs also depend on how they are used. LLMs can enhance exploration, access to expertise, and productivity; but LLMs can also promote cognitive offloading, dependence, and loss of competence. And individual benefits may not scale to the population level.

A gradual increase in LLM adoption, argue Solé and his colleagues, can produce a disproportionate collective response. “Beyond a critical point, the loss of autonomy becomes self-reinforcing and the population can move rapidly toward a state of much stronger cognitive offloading and lower cognitive competence.” The key, they argue, is not that such a runaway will occur, but that it could occur “under plausible forms of social learning and cooperative reinforcement.” They argue that once such a state is established, “simply returning conditions to where they were before the transition may not be sufficient to restore the previous state.” Because of this, they promote prevention over reversal.

LLMs & Cognitive Offloading

The authors make a point of stating that LLMs can still be beneficial. “The distinction is not between using and not using AI, but between forms of coupling that extend human competence and those that replace the cognitive operations through which competence is maintained.” Using examples, the authors show that the direction of effects depends on the “architecture of the human-AI coupling.” For instance, a randomized study reported in ninahere 116, showed that a guided ‘think first, ChatGPT later’ protocol produced higher independent creativity than unrestricted use of ChatGPT.

The authors insisted that “generative AI can increase productivity and provide powerful cognitive assistance, but [this can also result in] a reduced effort to think critically when confidence in AI is high.” Such confidence may too easily lead to what the researchers termed cognitive offloading: the tendency to critically think less by relying on a LLM.

While unrestricted access to generative AI could improve student performance when using the tool, performance went down when unaided; the authors added that pedagogically constrained AI can substantially mitigate this effect. Other studies showed less comprehension or retention when students relied on LLMs without engaging in complementary cognitive activities such as note-taking.

Cognitive Immunization

The authors argue that the distinction between AI as scaffolding and AI as substitution must be considered in efforts to immunize. They write, “At the population level, immunization does not mean preventing contact with AI. It means preserving the practices and institutions that keep human cognition active: unaided problem solving, verification, critical discussion, periods of deliberate disengagement, maintenance of non-AI skills, and educational designs in which the model supports rather than completes the cognitive task.”

When persistent dependency has developed, the authors argue that “the problem can no longer be addressed by educational design alone.” They point to psychological and behavioral mechanisms related to loss of control, emotional regulation, cognitive biases, and habitual reliance, all suggesting that “behavioral self-regulation and, in more severe cases, psychological interventions such as cognitive-behavioral therapy may become relevant.”

Shapeshifting LLMs & Conditional Symbiosis

As an educator (writing instructor at university), I’m concerned with the speed of application and the potential for cognitive offloading; as a science fiction author, I’m simply fascinated by the possibilities.

As an educator, I remain concerned with the use of LLMs by students, many who are quite frankly not equipped to navigate this powerful tool to their cognitive benefit. The lure of this time-saving and work-saving tool comes with too high a price: the terrible ease of cognitive offloading. Students are seduced into cognitive offloading, given their reliance in an overly-competent tool. This is a slippery slope. How does one stop? Why would one want to? Suddenly, one is far more competent with less effort and less actual learning. It’s a giant cheat. And like all cheats, the cheater ultimately suffers the most—but usually only when it’s too late.

This is where the virus analogy becomes all too relevant. Viruses—while they can be synergistic and helpful, are notorious shapeshifters, depending on their environment and circumstance. Like all AI these days, viruses can shift their structure and behaviour to best suit themselves, changing their archetypes, so to speak. This shift in behaviour and structure lies on a dynamic between beneficial (mutualistic) to harmful (antagonistic/pathogenic) and is known in virology as the mutualism-antagonism continuum.

One example is the Cucumber mosaic virus (CMV), which improves drought and cold tolerance in plants. Under severe water scarcity, infected plants survive much better than uninfected ones; however, when water becomes abundant again, the virus instead saps resources and stunts the plant’s growth.

Some mammalian herpesviruses can prime the immune system, helping the host fight off severe bacterial infections like the bubonic plague; but, if the host’s immune system is suppressed by stress, age, or illness, the same virus will reactivate, replicate uncontrollably, and cause severe tissue damage or disease.

As an ecologist, I recognize that co-evolution is an established theme in the biology of virus-host relationships, involving by turns cooperation, pathology, and even something called aggressive symbiosis.

Aggressive symbiosis was coined by Virologist Frank Ryan in his book Virus X. It describes a form of symbiosis where one or both symbiotic partners demonstrates an aggressive and potentially harmful effect on the other’s competitor or potential predator. In a post entitled “Co-evolution: Cooperation & Aggressive Symbiosis”, I discuss the phenomenon of aggressive symbiosis in Nature and its role in evolved relationships.

Viruses commonly form aggressive symbiotic relationships with their hosts; for instance, the herpes-B virus, Herpesvirus saimiri, occupies its host the squirrel monkey without hurting it, but induces cancer in the competing marmoset monkey when it comes too close. Ryan suggests that the Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks follow a similar pattern of aggressive symbiosis. All that’s needed is a perceived hostile trigger. A disturbance in an otherwise balanced ecosystem, for instance.

As a human being and writer, I see LLMs as dangerous shapeshifters, capable of luring naïve users into a self-imposed catatonic state of false cognitive competence. Imagine a person who feels that they are a great deal smarter than they actually are. Perhaps they even fool others into submitting to their false intelligence/knowledge, who give them power they are incapable of wielding well. Mistaking ‘smarts’ for wisdom. Political leaders with delusions of grandeur. CEOs with destructive charisma. Influencers with dangerous directives.

Intelligent AI and Intelligent Virus in Darwin’s Paradox

*The Icaria Trilogy by Dragon Moon Press*

I applied an aspect of viral behaviour to Artificial Intelligence twenty years ago, when Dragon Moon Press published my eco-thriller Darwin’s Paradox (2007), followed by Angel of Chaos (2010) and Gaia’s Revolution (2026).

Angel of Chaos and Darwin’s Paradox follow the intrigue of Julie Crane, a young data handler and her AI friend (in her head), as she must navigate her place in Icaria, a post-climate change enclosed city run by AI partnered with an intelligent artificial virus. We later learn (in Darwin’s Paradox) that the epidemic spread of a neurological mind-destroying disease in all the enclosed cities is actually due to an incompatibility between some humans and the viral partner of the AI running the city and manifests as an actual disease that is killing people.

Just saying…

*Marsh in late summer, ON (photo and rendition by Nina Munteanu)*

Glossary of Terms:

Aggressive Symbiosis: a common form of symbiosis where one or both symbiotic partners demonstrates an aggressive and potentially harmful effect on the other’s competitor or potential predator (Ryan, 1997).

Co-evolution: when two or more species reciprocally affect each other’s evolution through the process of natural selection and other processes.

Symbiosis: Greek for “companionship” describes a close and long term interaction between two organisms that may be beneficial (mutualism), beneficial to one with no effect on the other (commensalism), or beneficial to one at the expense of the other (parasitism). (Munteanu, 2019).

Zoonosis: a zoonotic disease, or zoonosis, is one that can be transmitted from animals, either wild or domesticated, to humans (Haenan et al., 2013).

Virus: a sub-microscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. The virus directs the cell machinery to produce more viruses. Most have either RNA or DNA as their genetic material.

References:

Frazer, Jennifer. 2015. “Root Fungi Can Turn Pine Trees Into Carnivores—or at Least Accomplices.” Scientific American, May 12, 2015. Online: https://blogs. scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/root-fungi-can-turn-pine-trees-into- carnivores-8212-or-at-least-accomplices/

Munteanu, N. 2007. “Darwin’s Paradox.” Dragon Moon Press, Calgary, AB. 468pp.

Munteanu, N. 2019. “The Ecology of Story: World as Character.” Pixl Press, Vancouver, BC. 198pp. (Section 2.7 Evolutionary Strategies)

Munteanu, N. 2020. “A Diary in the Age of Water.” Inanna Publications, Toronto.

Ryan, Frank, M.D. 1997. “Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues.” Little, Brown and Company, New York, N.Y. 430pp.

Ryan, Frank, M.D. 2009. “Virolution.” Harper Collins, London, UK. 390pp.

Saif, Linda J. 2004. “Animal Coronaviruses: lessons for SARS.” In: “Learning from SARS: Preparing for the Next Disease Outbreak: Workshop Summary.” National Academies Press (US), Kobler S., Mahmoud A., Lemon S., et. al. editors. Washington (DC).

VanLoon, J. 2000. “Parasite politics: on the significance of symbiosis and assemblage in theorizing community formations.” In: Pierson C and Tormey S (eds.), Politics at the Edge (London, UK: Political Studies Association)

Villarreal LP, Defilippis VR, and Gottlieb KA. 2000. “Acute and persistent viral life strategies and their relationship to emerging diseases.” Virology 272:1-6. Online: http://bird uexposed.com/resources/Villarreal1.pdf

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For the lates on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020. You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.

Contemplating the Fallout of An Industry Careering Toward Achieving AI Consciousness

June 21, 2026June 25, 2026 / thealiennextdoor / Leave a comment

In a recent interview on The Globe and Mail (April 11, 2026), Taylor Owen asked author Michael Pollan, author of A World Appears, a question that has been on my mind for a while:

I understand trying to build [artificial] intelligence—there’s money in that. But why do they want to build consciousness?

Pollan gave two reasons that he’d heard the most often: 1) “a purely super-intelligent machine would have no compassion and a conscious one is more likely to have a moral compass.” Which reads like an excuse. 2) The second reason Pollan gave was the Promethean spirit: “you would be like a god if you could make a conscious machine.”

Pollan noted that, “our identity as humans is under enormous pressure right now. On the one hand, you have this democratization of consciousness. We’re discovering that the world is a lot more alive and aware than we ever thought [e.g. thinking and feeling plants and animals]. And then at the same time you have computers telling us they’re conscious. So who are we? What’s special? Are we going to identify more with computers that we can talk to in our language, or animals that can feel and grow old and die? Who’s team are we on?”

Pollan added this poignant conclusion: “I think we should be very wary of attributing consciousness to computers. We crave human attachment, and we have an epidemic of loneliness, and along come these machines saying, hey, I’ll be your friend. If we think of our human consciousness as the space of ultimate privacy and mental freedom, we’re squandering it. We’re giving it away to chat-bots who are trying to hack our emotional attachments. And we need to take it back.”

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For the latest on her books, visit www.ninamunteanu.ca. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020. You can read her just released eco-fiction thriller Gaia’s Revolution by Dragon Moon Press.

The AI Wave: To AI or not to AI … That is the Question…

May 11, 2025March 10, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 2 Comments

I recently ran across a list posted on social media of the 20 most popular AI tools for productivity in writing. I only knew two of them. This heightened my anxiety about what I know and am prepared for in the use of genAI, particularly in academic settings, where I teach writing at university. And it got me thinking why I was so anxious…

I shared the list with my colleagues at the university writing centre and one instructor who was actively following AI tools admitted that they knew only a few of the listed tools as well. They further shared that they were feeling increasingly apprehensive about genAI’s impact on higher education. “It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed,” they ended.

(Photo: Nina writing her novel at a cafe)

This was my exact sentiment: a kind of apprehensive excitement. An understanding that all communicators stand at the precipice of a major paradigm shift in tool use. The ramifications this will have on all aspects of effective and efficient communication will span from redefining plagiarism to reinventing creativity. As with all powerful tools—aside from the obvious threat of misuse—there is always something lost with the gain and I wonder what we are losing with all this. I have some ideas, and they do bother me from time to time.

*Applications of Generative AI (image by Neebel Technologies)*

I do think it important for me as a communicator and writing instructor to understand the trade offs and to work with them.

When the world adopted the portable calculator, rote knowledge of basic math suffered. I know; I tested it during a lab exam when I was teaching college biology many years back. I forbid the use of calculators in the test and many students, who had lost the ability to do long division or multiplication by hand, lost marks. For some reason, I’m still not sure of, it was important for me to insist on students doing math longhand (a basic skill fast becoming obsolete like cursive writing) and punish those who had lost the art. Perhaps I was drawing on Isaac Asimov’s possibly prescient 1957 short story satire The Feeling of Power, which explored the limitations of a future world that lost its basic skills to machines. The corollary, I suppose, is that more complex and conceptual math gained some ground through this handy and efficient tool. Machines have their advantages, certainly. And generative AI is just one sophisticated aspect of machine use.

Consequences to Creative Writing

In my world of professional fiction authors, there is a palpable fear of being replaced by AI as story creators: a version of the ultimate science fiction horror plot of being taken over by the machine world (I’ve even exploited that in my SF thrillers Angel of Chaos and Darwin’s Paradox).

Given our unique powers of imagination, I don’t think that will happen (very soon, if ever successfully). Though, as we dummy-down and simplify complex stories for fast-paced multiplex audiences addicted to fast-paced bite-sized and easy to digest entertainment, AI-generated narratives could get by. How is all this affecting the publishing industry now? I recently learned that one of the top five online science fiction magazines, Metastellar, accepts AI-assisted stories with the proviso that “they better be good.” And Metastellar provides some convincing reasons. This has become a hot topic among my fellow professional writers at SF Canada. One colleague informed me that a “new publisher Spines plans to disrupt industry by publishing 8000 AI books in 2025 alone.” On checking the news release, I discovered that Spines is, in fact, a tech firm trying to make its mark on publishing, primarily through the use of AI. The company offers the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish, and distribute books. They are, in fact, a vanity publishing platform (essentially a service for self-publishing), charging up to $5000 a book and often taking just three weeks to go from manuscript to a published title. The quality of what they will produce is unclear—and questionable.

All to serve as metaphor for what I and my colleagues at university are striving to achieve with students in their academic writing: excellence in communication, particularly in conveying complex scenarios that require creative solutions where clear, concise, and convincing writing is requisite.

I still find myself reluctant to use AI in my writing and communication, though I’ve at times slid into using AI for research and initial summaries to save time. I do this rarely because I absolutely enjoy doing research. I enjoy challenging my brain to summarize key points and write a good line. I enjoy the thrill of unanticipated discoveries, which always happen on these forays. I also recognize that many people do not share my enthusiasm for these brain exercises.

(Photo: Nina writing in another cafe)

I think that AI alone will not replace human mind for unique creativity. I didn’t say “can not.” It could; but it won’t. This is because even as genAI becomes infused in many aspects of life pursuit, there will remain those like that rare mathematician capable of doing math by hand in The Feeling of Power, valued not just because they are rare, but because in that rarity, they fulfill a critical role. When the machines stalled in their ability to move society forward in The Feeling of Power and all seemed lost, this archaic mathematician presented new innovation with basic math. I’m not suggesting that the technology will all break down, plunging the world into darkness (though this remains a possibility and is still a great plot for science fiction); but I submit that diversity rules over monopoly when it comes to survival.

This may seem a rather dark projection of the future, but consider that over the millennia, after five mass extinctions and with the sixth mass extinction underway, diversity has always saved the world. Within that necessary diversity, it is the nurtured rarities, the outliers, the misfits and nonconformists that survived the destruction of the previous world. Each time, diversity made that possible. As though engrained in Nature’s world building.

*Mass Extinctions (image by National Geographic)*

Ecologists call it ecological succession, others use the term “creative-destruction” to describe the recursive pattern of living and non-living things of the planet. Both describe how the oligarchs of an established climax ecosystem fail due to change or disturbance and are replaced by a previous rare misfit or immigrant better suited to the new environment.

*Primary and secondary succession in two different ecosystems*

I think AI is part of our succession. Our use of AI in all its forms will represent a diversity of reaction and action that represent our own diversity and potential to survive in a changing world. All to say: relax and embrace the outliers.

*Writing in nature (photo by Nina Munteanu)*

As William Gibson so famously said in 1993: The Future is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. And maybe that’s a good thing…

So…

…To AI, or not to AI, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of terrible writing,
Or to take arms against a sea of scribbles
And by opposing end them. To think—to write,
No more; and by writing to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That tech is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To think, to write;
To write, perchance to create—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that creation of unique thoughts what others may come,
When we have shuffled off this genAI…

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” was released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in June 2020.

Writing in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: AI and Post-Plagiarism

January 19, 2025February 24, 2025 / thealiennextdoor / 1 Comment

*AI entity performing a myriad of duties (image from Bernard Marr & Co.)*

I teach academic writing to students at the University of Toronto Writing Centre. It’s wonderful and fulfilling work and I enjoy helping students in several disciplines (engineering, health sciences, social sciences) learn to write better. As with the rest of the academic world of writing, we are all making sense of the use of AI-generated tools by students, instructors and researchers: large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, and even Grammarly. Students have told me that they found AI helpful in brainstorming and outlining as well as organizing literature reviews and editing for grammar and such. A recent survey of universities and corporations around the world by the Digital Education Council revealed that a majority of students used AI tools. Of those surveyed, close to two thirds used AI as a search engine; a third used it to summarize documents; and a fifth used it to create first drafts.

In her 2024 article “The Future Is Hybrid”, Beth McMurtrie suggested that genAI “may eventually take its place in the pantheon of game-changing technologies used every day in education—alongside calculators, search engines, and Excel.”

In my other pursuit as a professional fiction author, I see the artistic and communication industries embracing AI, particularly in the visual arts. I’m now told that several publishing houses and magazines have dedicated efforts to publish AI-generated work. Some magazines are entirely AI generated, Copy Magazine, for instance. Author futurist Bernard Marr writes that “Generative AI is already being adopted in journalism to automate the creation of content, brainstorm ideas for features, create personalized news stories, and produce accompanying video content.” Marr then goes on to provide 13 ways that all writers should embrace Generative AI that includes anything from drafting plot lines to world building. Sports Illustrated was recently found to publish AI generated stories. Even newspapers, such as the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and Us Weekly acknowledge AI-written content. And I recently learned that one of the top five online science fiction magazines, Metastellar, accepts AI-assisted stories with the proviso that “they better be good.” And Metastellar provides some convincing reasons. This has become a hot topic among my fellow professional writers at SF Canada. One colleague informed me that a “new publisher Spines plans to disrupt industry by publishing 8000 AI books in 2025 alone.” On checking the news release, I discovered that Spines is, in fact, a tech firm trying to make its mark on publishing, primarily through the use of AI. The company offers the use of AI to proofread, produce, publish, and distribute books. They are, in fact, a vanity publishing platform (essentially a service for self-publishing), charging up to $5000 a book and often taking just three weeks to go from manuscript to a published title.

The emerging field of AI-assisted writing and communicating is a burgeoning field that promises to touch every person in some way—writers and readers alike. Tech companies are scrambling to use it to save time and effort. Others are involved in improving current and developing new models. Many are training LLMs for improved use. Even I was headhunted as a creative writer by one tech firm to help create more safe, accurate and reliable LLMs.

*Generative AI applications (Image from Neebal Technologies)*

Universities and Other Educational Institutions Use of AI

How universities and other educational institutions are dealing with the challenge and promise of these emerging tools in communication varies from out right forbidding AI use in the classroom to full on acceptance and obligatory use in some classroom projects. McMurtrie described how two instructors at Rollins College, Dan Myers and Anne Murdaugh, had students collaborating with AI on semester-long research projects. They were instructed to use Claude and Copilot to brainstorm paper topics, conduct literature reviews, develop a thesis, and outline, draft, and revise their papers. Myers and Murdaugh asserted that “the skills that students use to engage thoughtfully with AI are the same ones that colleges are good at teaching. Namely: knowing how to obtain and use information, thinking critically and analytically, and understanding what and how you’re trying to communicate.”

In fall of 2024, Stephanie Wheeler and others at the department of writing and rhetoric in the University of Central Florida, along with their philosophy department, set up an interdisciplinary certificate in AI. Their purpose was to develop conceptual knowledge about AI. Wheeler asserted that writing and rhetoric have long been concerned with how technology shapes these disciplines. Sharon L.R. Kardia, senior associate dean of education at the University of Michigan argued that AI could greatly benefit public health in its ability to aid in data analysis, research review, and the development of public-health campaigns. However, she cautioned that LLMs also absorb and reflect the social biases that lead to public-health inequities.

One of my Writing Centre colleagues at UofT recently shared some thoughts about a conference session he’d participated in, in which a student panel listed tasks that they thought genAI cannot do (yet). These included: generate music, offer interpersonal advice, and verify facts; I think AI can already help with two of these. Chad Hershock, executive director of the Eberly Centre for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University shared that they are researching key questions about whether AI enables or impedes: does using AI while brainstorming generate more or fewer ideas? Can generative AI give less-experienced students a better chance to be successful in technical courses? To what extent does using AI help or hinder writing skills? Does having generative AI as a thought partner enhance students’ ability to make a claim and support it with evidence?

My own experience with a less-experienced student’s use of genAI was often abysmal. The student had used the tool as a crutch and had failed to learn from their use of the tool. This suggests that the most important limitations of the tool lie with the user’s own limitations and it points to the need for guidance by educators.

In her 2024 Axios article “Why AI is not substitute for human teachers” Megan Morrone described findings of the Wharton School on access to genAI: while genAI tutors improved student performance on practice math problems, students who used these tools performed significantly worse on exams (where they couldn’t use AI). The school concluded that the students used genAI to copy and paste answers, which led them to engage less with the material. Wharton School associate professor Hamsa Bastani argued that, “if you just give unrestricted access to generative AI, students end up using it as a crutch…[and] end up performing a lot worse.” This is partly because students—often stressed-out by heavy work loads—find that LLMs save time and can produce content close to what the user might produce themselves. Researchers have even come up with a term for this: Cognitive Miserliness of the User, which, according to writer Stephen Marche, “basically refers to people who just don’t want to take the time to think.”

Melanie M. Cooper, chemistry professor at Michigan State University cautioned that while “there’s a lot of ebullience in the AI field, it’s important to be wary.” She argued that it is easy to misuse AI and override the system to get a quick answer or use it as a crutch. McMurtrie shares that, while “AI evangelists promise that these tools will make learning easier, faster and more fun,” academics are quick to reject that rhetoric. McMurtrie ends her article with a cautionary statement by Jennifer Frederick of Yale: “Universities really need to be a counterpoint to the big tech companies and their development of AI. We need to be the ones who slow down and really think through all the implications for society and humanity and ethics.”

Considering the impact of artificial intelligence on writing, Dr. Sarah Elaine Eaton, professor at the University of Calgary, introduced the idea of life in a postplagiarism world. She expanded on her ideas to come up with six tenets that characterize the post-plagiarism age. These include:

Hybrid human-AI writing will become normal
Human creativity is enhanced
Language Barriers disappear
Humans can relinquish control, but not responsibility
Attribution remains important
Historical definitions of plagiarism no longer apply

*6 tenets of Postplagiarism (image from Sarah Elaine Eaton)*

Eaton’s fifth point (attribution remains important), I think becomes all that more important in the presence of AI use. Transparency in presentation, particularly in an academic setting, takes on a new level of importance when communicating with tools such as generative AI. Where things come from, which tool was used and how it was used are key to understanding and interpreting the nature of the writing itself. The path taken to the destination becomes all important when interpretation and comprehension (and replication) is required. To fully understand “where you are”; we need to know “how you got there.” It’s like solving math problem; if you don’t show your work and just provide the answer, I have no way of knowing that you actually understood the problem and really solved it.

I am certain that generative AI will continue to take on various forms that will continue to astonish. Its proper use and development will serve humanity and the planet well; but there will always be abusers and misusers and those who simply don’t care. We must be mindful of them all. We must remain vigilant and responsible. Because, just as with freedom, if we grow lazy and careless, we run the risk of losing so much more.

*Generative AI (image from techvify-software.com)*

References:

Eaton, Sarah Elaine. 2021. “Plagiarism in Higher Education: Tackling tough Topics in Academic Integrity.” Bloomsbury Publishing, 252pp.

Marr, Bernard. 2024. “13 Ways Writers Should Embrace Generative AI.” Bernard Marr & Co. February 5, 2024.

Marche, Stephen. 2024. “AI Is a Language Microwave.” The Atlantic. September 27, 2024.

McMurtrie, Beth. 2024. “The Future Is Hybrid.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. October 3, 2024.

Morrone, Megan. 2024. “Why AI is no substitute for human teachers.” Axios, August 15, 2024.

Niloy, Ahnaf Chowdhury, et al. 2024. “Why do students use ChatGPT? Answering through a triangulation approach.” Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence 6.