Good Essay/Bad Essay

Complete on: Friday 10 Oct. at class time

Can an AI Chatbot really write a good essay? What makes a good essay, anyway?

I’ll give you a prompt to write an essay, and you’ll use both ChatGPT and Google Gemini to generate two essays on that prompt. Then, you’ll research the topic and annotate the essays (using Microsoft Word comments) to show what the essays got right and what they got wrong. You should critique both the content and the style of these essays, keeping in mind our discussion of chatbots in class, as well as the Chiang reading.

You’ll also write a short (5-7 sentence) reflection on how these essays performed. Were these good essays or bad essays? Would you trust a chatbot to write an essay for you? Would you trust it if you thought other people were going to really believe that it was your writing?

I’ll distribute essay prompts and more detailed instructions in class on Friday 10 Oct. You’ll complete this assignment entirely in class, but it will be calculated as a separate assignment grade.