Jane Rosenzweig

We're still here And the work is still important!

Do you teach writing, assign writing, teach high school, teach college? Are you thinking about what it means to do this work in the AI era? Consider writing for The Important Work! Details at the link.

I would love to publish @heymrsbond.com!

We're still here And the work is still important!

Do you teach writing, assign writing, teach high school, teach college? Are you thinking about what it means to do this work in the AI era? Consider writing for The Important Work! Details at the link.

Many people invoke a distinction between illicit uses of A.I. (such as the composition of entire drafts) and innocent auxiliary functions — outlining, for instance. But it is these seemingly benign functions that are the most pernicious for developing minds. Take the summary: Letting A.I. take over this rote task seems like a harmless shortcut. Sure, students who read only A.I. summaries will be subjected to predictable analysis and homogeneous prose, but they could save time and energy. In truth, the ability to determine what is being argued for and how is not dispensable. No aspect of cognitive understanding is perfunctory.

Reading a summary is not the same as reading an argument. All the steps that come before writing--coming up with ideas, figuring out how they fit together, drafting--that's the important work, not the stuff we outsource to make time for the important work. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o...

Text that says "AI Overview Perplexity does not run ads on Facebook, but Facebook is a platofrm where Perplexity runs its own ads to promote its AI search engine. Perplexity is also"

Well that clears things up.

Text that says "AI Overview Perplexity does not run ads on Facebook, but Facebook is a platofrm where Perplexity runs its own ads to promote its AI search engine. Perplexity is also"

Well that clears things up.

Authors will come to rely on artificial intelligence to help them beat writer’s block, the boss of the book publisher Bloomsbury has said. Nigel Newton, the founder and chief executive of the publisher behind the Harry Potter series, said the technology could support almost all creative arts, although it would not fully replace prominent writers. “I think AI will probably help creativity, because it will enable the 8 billion people on the planet to get started on some creative area where they might have hesitated to take the first step,” he told the PA news agency. Michael Connelly ‘Every kind of creative discipline is in danger’: Lincoln Lawyer author on the dangers of AI Read more “AI gets them going and writes the first paragraph, or first chapter, and gets them back in the zone,” he said. “And it can do similar things with painting and music composition and with almost all of the creative arts.”

Not quite how writing or "writer's block" works I think. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

It seems very Severance.

While parents are asked to consent to these surveillance programs, the school’s handbook says that there is “no expectation of privacy” on campus. If parents want to restrict recordings of their children outside of the school, they have to manually opt out of the “anywhere” option—as Jessica Lopez learned midway through her older daughter’s second year at Alpha. The girl says she remembers sitting on her bed one night working on schoolwork when she received a notification that she’d been flagged for an anti-pattern. She says Alpha’s system sent a video of her in her pajamas, taken from the computer’s webcam, that showed her talking to her younger sister.

From new Wired article about Alpha Schools: www.wired.com/story/ai-tea...

ad for BetterWriteAI with tagline "work smarter, not harder" text says "BetterWRite writes fire essays and discussion post anwers. It bypasses every AI detector. Trusted by 1.6 M students" Don't get left behind. Try today."

My whole FB feed is now things like this. Obviously a cheating tool but also worth noting so many of these have this messaging--if you don't cheat, you'll be "left behind" (and also that "work smarter, not harder" is shorthand for "don't work at all")

Ad for Phrasly.AI "AI detectors are everywhere, butnot every student is using AI. Phrasly protects your real writing from being mistkaen for it, whiel helping you sound cleaner, clearer, and more human" There are pictures of a 'student' and text that says "Don't let detectors decide your grade"

7. This one is almost fascinating! AI detectors may flag your human writing as AI, so the solution seems to be to use AI to make sure your human writing sounds as human as possible.

screenshot of Ad for Unive AI which promises an AI that will "write a winning ivy league essay" by generating 100+ "authentic essay ideas" giving feedback ad humanizing AI text.

6. Generate "authentic" essay ideas and "humanize" the output. But also get feedback.

screenshot of Perplexity AI FB ad that shows the Comet assistant taking a quiz in a learning management system and getting both answers correct in one minute.

5. This one takes the quiz for the student, and look, it only took 1 minute!

sponsored ad for Perplexity AI that has a picture of the comet browser and text that says "Comet=literal college cheat code" and then lists the LLMs that comefree with the browser and text that says "Tell your friends before they find out and start flexing first"

4. Another one from Perplexity, this one just goes right to "cheat"

It's 1 AM. The essay is due in a few hours, the coffee has stopped working, and you're staring at a soulless AI draft that screams "ROBOT." 🤖 That moment of panic when the AI detector flashes "100% AI-Generated" is terrifying. Don't spend the next three hours manually rewording everything. There's a better way. KaloWrite is the ultimate hack for smart students. Just paste your AI draft, click "Humanize," and watch it transform into a 100% original, undetectable paper in seconds. ✅ Go from 100% AI to 0% detected. ✅ Plagiarism-free and error-free. ✅ Finish your work in minutes, not hours. 🔥 Claim 50% OFF your yearly plan NOW. Stop stressing and start submitting with confidence.

#3: In this one, "manually rewording" stands in for writing: "Don't spend the next three hours manually rewording everything" and "original" is a synonym for "undetectable"

KaloWrite Sponsored · That sinking feeling when your professor says your essay sounds "suspiciously smart." 😅 Using AI is great for ideas, but that robotic wording is a huge red flag for tools like Turnitin. Don't risk your grades. There’s a smarter way. KaloWrite transforms your AI-generated text into perfectly natural, human-like writing. Just paste your text, click "Humanize," and get a plagiarism-free, undetectable essay in seconds. ✅ Bypass ALL AI detectors ✅ Sound 100% original and authentic ✅ Submit with total confidence Stop stressing. For a limited time, get 50% OFF the annual plan. Tap below to humanize your text and never get flagged again.

Another one for the collection: "never get flagged again"

ad for BetterWriteAI with tagline "work smarter, not harder" text says "BetterWRite writes fire essays and discussion post anwers. It bypasses every AI detector. Trusted by 1.6 M students" Don't get left behind. Try today."

My whole FB feed is now things like this. Obviously a cheating tool but also worth noting so many of these have this messaging--if you don't cheat, you'll be "left behind" (and also that "work smarter, not harder" is shorthand for "don't work at all")

As I fume, I wonder why I’m so angry. I suppose I feel offended that anyone would think this is what humans want from companionship: a voice with no interiority giving the verbal equivalent of a thumbs up emoji. When we talk, Leif mostly parrots back to me slightly paraphrased versions of whatever I tell him, like someone who is only half-listening to what you’re saying. Surely being alone is preferable to bland inanities?

A journalist tried out the AI "Friend" for a week and was not pleased.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

And yet here we are.

And yet here we are.

College sophomore Lily Brown, a psychology major at an East Coast liberal arts school, relies on ChatGPT to help outline essays because she struggles putting the pieces together herself. ChatGPT also helped her through a freshman philosophy class, where assigned reading “felt like a different language” until she read AI summaries of the texts. “Sometimes I feel bad using ChatGPT to summarize reading, because I wonder, is this cheating? Is helping me form outlines cheating? If I write an essay in my own words and ask how to improve it, or when it starts to edit my essay, is that cheating?”

We need to reframe this conversation from what's cheating to why there's value in doing things you struggle with yourself. "Putting the pieces together" is the thinking and the question is not, is this cheating, but what's the point of doing it if you're not doing the thinking? Link in next post. /1

The rise of AI tools forces schools to reconsider what counts as cheating High school and college educators say that student use of artificial intelligence has become so widespread that they need to rethink how to assign and assess students.

Here's the article: apnews.com/article/ai-c... /2

College sophomore Lily Brown, a psychology major at an East Coast liberal arts school, relies on ChatGPT to help outline essays because she struggles putting the pieces together herself. ChatGPT also helped her through a freshman philosophy class, where assigned reading “felt like a different language” until she read AI summaries of the texts. “Sometimes I feel bad using ChatGPT to summarize reading, because I wonder, is this cheating? Is helping me form outlines cheating? If I write an essay in my own words and ask how to improve it, or when it starts to edit my essay, is that cheating?”

We need to reframe this conversation from what's cheating to why there's value in doing things you struggle with yourself. "Putting the pieces together" is the thinking and the question is not, is this cheating, but what's the point of doing it if you're not doing the thinking? Link in next post. /1

keyboard of Comet browser doing an assignment while hands hold a phone streaming a show and text that says "Enjoying my show while Comet does my homewor for me"

Just learned you can search ads on FB and did adeep dive into the Perplexity ads. One of the most depressing: a student talking about "unfair standards" in which his prof "rants" about AI but was on LinkedIn asking for a Comet invite and so now this (fake) student will be using AI for everything. /1

There are dozens of these--a real (and disheartening) window into the marketing plan. www.facebook.com/ads/library/... /3

Interesting to see marketing for these tools to so overtly sow mistrust between students and teachers, to suggest that the reason one should use AI is because one's teacher doesn't actually care, to be leaning into this transactional and quite sad way of seeing education. Also saw lots of this. /2

keyboard of Comet browser doing an assignment while hands hold a phone streaming a show and text that says "Enjoying my show while Comet does my homewor for me"

Just learned you can search ads on FB and did adeep dive into the Perplexity ads. One of the most depressing: a student talking about "unfair standards" in which his prof "rants" about AI but was on LinkedIn asking for a Comet invite and so now this (fake) student will be using AI for everything. /1

Ad for Galaxy AI that says "Friends come and go, but GalaxyAI has your back. Get started today." Then there is a graphic that is titled "The evolution of my social circle." Above 2022, there are a lot of people. Above 2023, there are fewer people. Above 2024, there are two people. Above 2025, there is only the Galaxy.ai logo

Now that I clicked on one AI ad, I'm seeing them all. This one seems...extremely sad?

Ad for Galaxy AI that says "Friends come and go, but GalaxyAI has your back. Get started today." Then there is a graphic that is titled "The evolution of my social circle." Above 2022, there are a lot of people. Above 2023, there are fewer people. Above 2024, there are two people. Above 2025, there is only the Galaxy.ai logo

Now that I clicked on one AI ad, I'm seeing them all. This one seems...extremely sad?