Futurist Essay
Complete by: Friday 10 May, before noon.
First Draft by: Friday 3 May, at class time.
The Prompt
What is the future of ____? Pick a specific business domain or social institution you are interested in (gaming, medicine, business and work, the home, travel, retail sales, the military, publishing/writing, “truth,” etc.) and discuss how technology is likely to affect that domain in the future. Ground your analysis in an understanding of the history of the topic, and in the futurist arguments we discussed in class. Research and describe specific examples from current technologies as evidence for your assertions. In the spirit of Postman, feel free to comment on both positive and negative aspects of the future you envision. Do something more than just write about what you’ve found: draw conclusions about what life will be like in the future you are describing. These should be part of your thesis, and part of your discussion throughout the paper.
The Details
Write an essay in response to the prompt above. The essay should have a minimum of six paragraphs: an introduction, four body paragraphs, and a conclusion; but it will probably require more. Use five or more sources, and be sure to demonstrate your ability to integrate quotes as you refer to your sources as evidence for your assertions. No more than two sources should be from our course readings—the rest should be sources that you researched on your own.
We will have a peer evaluation session for this essay at the end of the term, and then you will also have the option of a conference with me. During these conferences, we can talk about your overall approach to the assignment, or about a particular paragraph or writing issue that you identify. The essay is due by the end of the final exam time established for our class.
The Twist
In keeping with the theme of “working with AI,” use ChatGPT to create a draft of this essay. When you submit your final essay, also submit a second document that includes the ChatGPT output, and a paragraph explaining how you did and did not use it. You can dispense with the ChatGPT output altogether (in which case, explain why), or use some of the topics it generates, even some of the structure of the ChatGPT output. But you should improve upon the ChatGPT version significantly and make this your own essay: Find your own sources, select and integrate quotes from your sources, add elements to the thesis that reflect your own thinking on your topic, develop paragraphs further in line with your thesis, etc. The assignment is not to see how well you can use ChatGPT to write a good essay, but rather, to become more familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of ChatGPT for academic work. You can also write your essay first, and then run the ChatGPT experiment.
This use of ChatGPT is approved for this single use in this class, do not do this in your other classes unless your professor explicitly approves it!
Requirements:
- Submit your essay to the assignment on Sakai.
- A minimum of 6 paragraphs, 900-1500 words
- Include the wordcount in the header of your paper
- Five or more sources (no more than two drawn from our course readings)
- Several integrated and correctly cited quotes from your sources
- A second document with the ChatGPT output, and a paragraph explaining how you did and did not use it
- Double-spaced, readable font
- MLA Format & Citations
- PDF format (not a Word doc or other file type)