Rebecca Cepek, PhD

This article addresses the needs of first-year writing students in regard to the use of generative artificial intelligence programs in the composition classroom. The responses to generative AI in academia have settled into three somewhat predictable patterns: complete resistance, complete acceptance, and the ever-popular middle ground. While generally, I like to avoid extremes, I am unable to do so in this case: I feel for the sake of our students, in terms of first-year writing, we must take the path of complete resistance. The various generative AI systems, as they exist now, are flawed for a variety of reasons, with deeply troubling ethical implications in terms of the environment, the information they produce, and the ways in which they share that information.