My Artificial Intelligence Experiment--Meet it Head On

 This was an assignment I gave my business communication students this January, having grown tired of AI-generated submissions and wanting to confront the issue. I am presenting on this to our faculty March 1--I don't have IRB approval to do more with the results, but I did get permission from ten students to use their answers in my presentation.

Choose one of the following writing tasks. Go to an AI writing tool (Google Bard, Chat Gpt4, etc.) and put the prompt in:

1.  Brainstorm ideas/topics for social media posts for a small business that provides pet care and grooming products and services.

2.  Write a negative news letter (also referred to as a bad news letter) to a client explaining that the company will not be able to replace a pair of pet clippers it sold because the clippers were damaged and returned after the warranty expired.

3.  Explain the concept of a cat café with a personal example.

Read the output critically and slowly. Answer these questions

  1. How is it different from your own writing?

  2. What is “good” (effective, clear, etc.) about it in terms of the qualities of business writing?

  3. What is “poor” (ineffective, unclear, etc.) about it in terms of the qualities of business writing?

  4. How would you use this output in a real situation?

  5. My goal is not to say “never touch generative AI.” But my goal is to make you think critically and realistically about its value and limitations.  Yes, it will take care of small writing tasks quickly. But what can it not do?

Post the following to the discussion board.

  1. Your answers to the questions in the textbox of the discussion board, being sure to use tools to edit and proofread.

  2. As an attachment, the AI generated document. 

  3. The rubric is available below this link.

Read and respond to at least one classmate, which includes their AI generated document and their post answering the questions.

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