You know where to go if you ever really need an English class. You are always welcome here. I'm hoping I have a few years left before I am replaced by a robot.
I've been thinking a lot about this issue this year and trying to verbalize the real point of English class to my students. My answer to the blue curtains question I think sums it up: it doesn't matter if the author really intended the meaning we see or not, because we have the power to create meaning. If I can teach students to find meaning in the minutest details in a poem or story, then my hope is they can find meaning in the details of their lives--to choose to see their own beauty reflected in the sunrise, or choose to take down the blue curtains in their room. I can teach people to find poetry meaningful, the real challenge is to teach them to find their own lives meaningful.
At the heart of the fear at the center of your work here seems to be the fear that we collectively will cease to see or search for meaning in our lives. How boring and dangerous that would be.
Thank you for reading Mr. Tharin! Teachers like you continue to be the first defenders against all of this, and I am so grateful for what your class gave me (including the ability to find meaning). Trust me when I say I would give anything for another Socratic seminar! As they say, you don’t know the good days til they’re gone, etc. etc.
Hi Cameron. Great piece and you and I are thinking a lot about the same thing. I worry about how AI will replace human thought especially creative thought. Here is how I keep myself off the ledge. Most creativity is a result of influences. A writer or an artist or a composer grows up with inputs from other people/experiences. They take those and using their individuality create their own art. AI might be the same. The creation of art by a human is now by the inputs we give to AI. What direction do i give it. Think about how you might tell it to create a Picasso or Shakespeare or Dylan piece without mentioning them by name. Almost impossible. Yesterday for laughs I asked ChatGPT to tell me what a Dylan song means. It's like asking what a Jackson Pollock painting means. It gave me the most antiseptic, literal meaning possible. It may have intelligence but luckily there is no artificial emotion or open interpretation (yet). Another example is I used the AI tool on Canva to create a custom logo for my cocktail salon. The results were like an inspiration board. I took some elements from a few of them and added my own creative elements to get the final result. As far as using it for travel plans GUILTY. I run it several times with different inputs (include small locals-only cocktail bars in central Copenhagen with vinyl records and emphasis on early 60s Jazz) and mash up up the results. Summing up, Yes we absolutely need to know about literature devices, plot and character development, vocabulary, and exposure to what humankind has come up with so far, and perhaps AI takes our individual creativity and allows us create a new era of art.
Hi David, This is definitely an interesting perspective, and many people do use AI for inspiration or to brainstorm a new idea. Yet, as you mentioned, it can't really replace the human emotion or *meaning* that we derive from art.
I suppose I'll remain somewhat of a luddite here simply because I still don't care to use AI for these purposes. Even if it takes more work, I'd rather brainstorm ideas myself. I can't imagine ever using AI to problem solve a plot issue in the novel I'm working on or to create a cover design. The art, the adventure, the thinking is in the toiling.
Even if it makes our lives easier, it doesn't replace the fact that AI was not developed ethically and is still extremely harmful when it's used, even for something trivial that may be embellished by human thought later. Much of the writing "skills" that AI has developed come from actual human writing - and those writers were not asked permission to use their work as a training platform (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/). There's also the unfortunate environmental impact of AI (https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117), which alone dissuades me from using it.
Pandora's box has been opened, so people are going to use AI these days no matter what I think about it. And certainly there are plenty of people who don't fully rely on AI to replace their creativity and human thought completely. But there are also plenty of people who do - and that's what I'm afraid of.
You know where to go if you ever really need an English class. You are always welcome here. I'm hoping I have a few years left before I am replaced by a robot.
I've been thinking a lot about this issue this year and trying to verbalize the real point of English class to my students. My answer to the blue curtains question I think sums it up: it doesn't matter if the author really intended the meaning we see or not, because we have the power to create meaning. If I can teach students to find meaning in the minutest details in a poem or story, then my hope is they can find meaning in the details of their lives--to choose to see their own beauty reflected in the sunrise, or choose to take down the blue curtains in their room. I can teach people to find poetry meaningful, the real challenge is to teach them to find their own lives meaningful.
At the heart of the fear at the center of your work here seems to be the fear that we collectively will cease to see or search for meaning in our lives. How boring and dangerous that would be.
It pleases me to no end to read what you write.
Thank you for reading Mr. Tharin! Teachers like you continue to be the first defenders against all of this, and I am so grateful for what your class gave me (including the ability to find meaning). Trust me when I say I would give anything for another Socratic seminar! As they say, you don’t know the good days til they’re gone, etc. etc.
Hi Cameron. Great piece and you and I are thinking a lot about the same thing. I worry about how AI will replace human thought especially creative thought. Here is how I keep myself off the ledge. Most creativity is a result of influences. A writer or an artist or a composer grows up with inputs from other people/experiences. They take those and using their individuality create their own art. AI might be the same. The creation of art by a human is now by the inputs we give to AI. What direction do i give it. Think about how you might tell it to create a Picasso or Shakespeare or Dylan piece without mentioning them by name. Almost impossible. Yesterday for laughs I asked ChatGPT to tell me what a Dylan song means. It's like asking what a Jackson Pollock painting means. It gave me the most antiseptic, literal meaning possible. It may have intelligence but luckily there is no artificial emotion or open interpretation (yet). Another example is I used the AI tool on Canva to create a custom logo for my cocktail salon. The results were like an inspiration board. I took some elements from a few of them and added my own creative elements to get the final result. As far as using it for travel plans GUILTY. I run it several times with different inputs (include small locals-only cocktail bars in central Copenhagen with vinyl records and emphasis on early 60s Jazz) and mash up up the results. Summing up, Yes we absolutely need to know about literature devices, plot and character development, vocabulary, and exposure to what humankind has come up with so far, and perhaps AI takes our individual creativity and allows us create a new era of art.
Hi David, This is definitely an interesting perspective, and many people do use AI for inspiration or to brainstorm a new idea. Yet, as you mentioned, it can't really replace the human emotion or *meaning* that we derive from art.
I suppose I'll remain somewhat of a luddite here simply because I still don't care to use AI for these purposes. Even if it takes more work, I'd rather brainstorm ideas myself. I can't imagine ever using AI to problem solve a plot issue in the novel I'm working on or to create a cover design. The art, the adventure, the thinking is in the toiling.
Even if it makes our lives easier, it doesn't replace the fact that AI was not developed ethically and is still extremely harmful when it's used, even for something trivial that may be embellished by human thought later. Much of the writing "skills" that AI has developed come from actual human writing - and those writers were not asked permission to use their work as a training platform (https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/libgen-meta-openai/682093/). There's also the unfortunate environmental impact of AI (https://news.mit.edu/2025/explained-generative-ai-environmental-impact-0117), which alone dissuades me from using it.
Pandora's box has been opened, so people are going to use AI these days no matter what I think about it. And certainly there are plenty of people who don't fully rely on AI to replace their creativity and human thought completely. But there are also plenty of people who do - and that's what I'm afraid of.