Writing in the Age of AI
deadline:
July 1, 2023
contact email: zea.miller
Details and submission info at https://www.jwai.org/conference
Conversations about artificial intelligence and writing—largely involving ChatGPT—range from excitement to existential dread. Writing about AI has been eclipsed by worrying about writing with AI. Is AI a tool or a threat? A friend or foe? Can AI transcend either/or? What should universities do now that AI has arrived? What about instructors and students? How will AI change classrooms? What policies must be created? What changes will be arriving in education, news, politics, or industry? What will we find at the intersection of AI and writing?
Until recently, AI has been the domain of the future if not science fiction. If we asked someone about AI just months ago, their examples would have ranged from sympathetic androids to sinister computer systems. While our imaginations of AI have always had room for a middle ground, discourse on AI tended toward these two camps. Now that AI is here, that two-camp paradigm still holds—but it need not be the case. Let’s explore new spaces. If we are living in the future, then we should consider what to bring with us and what to leave behind. Let’s have new conversations about inevitable technological progress in uncertain times.
In this spirit, we invite proposals that address AI and writing thoughtfully, dynamically, and compellingly. To these ends, we are interested in topics that not only span but also go beyond this list of possibilities:
Pedagogy
- Assignment Presentations
- Writing Exercise Demonstrations
- Revising Teaching Statements
- Revisiting Traditional Techniques
Potential
- Identity, Class, Access, and Paywalls
- Ability, Disability, and Accessibility
- Inclusion, Exclusion, Bias, and Discrimination
- What’s next?
- What is missing from the conversation?
- Who is not included in the conversation but should be or should not be and why?
- What has not yet been imagined?
- What possibilities are not being considered?
Philosophy
- Writing Program Mission, Vision, and Value Statements
- Writing Program Policies, Codes, Procedures
- Writing Centers and Tutoring
Purview
- Inspiration, Creation, Consultation
- Use, Misuse, Abuse, Dependency
- Plagiarism and False Positives
- Censorship
- Accuracy, Inaccuracy
- Phrasing, Style
Paradigms
- Embrace, Exile, Examine, Enhance, Explore, Exit, or Exist
- Authenticity, Originality, and Genuineness
- Tool, Resource, Mode, or Model
- Improving or Hindering Communication
- Improving or Hindering Collaboration
- The Nature of Work: Learning, Writing, and Thinking
- Bridging the Humanities and STEM
Praxis
- Authors, Authority, and Authenticity
- Human, Humanity, and the Humanities
- The Writing Process
- Inspiration, Discovery, Sources, and Sourcing
- Code, Coding, and Consultation
Principles
- What Instructors Owe Students
- What Students Owe Themselves
- What Students Owe Instructors
- What is good or bad, right or wrong with AI and writing? Why?
We envision a lively, interactive conference experience full of papers, lightning talks, PechaKuchas, workshops, slideshow presentations, and roundtable discussions. Submissions from graduate students and faculty of all ranks are welcome.