Grand Text Auto

The goal of the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication is to “encourage high-quality science communication and build a diverse community of science journalists, research scientists, and institutions that will help society meet the challenges and opportunities posed by climate change, future pandemics, human genome editing, and other issues that can only be understood and navigated with the help of effective science communication.” These annual awards, give to 24 exceptional writers, total $60,000. Professor Flanagan was among the jury members in 2022 and will continue into the 2023 award cycle. Says Flanagan, “It was a lot of work but such great writing— what a pleasure!”

Edward Schiappa, Professor of Rhetoric
Nick Montfort, Professor of Digital Media
10 January 2023

[In response to a request, this is an HTML version of a PDF memo for our colleagues at MIT]

There has been a noticeable increase in student use of AI assistance for writing recently. Instructors have expressed concerns and have been seeking guidance on how to deal with systems such as GPT-3, which is the basis for the very recent ChatGPT. The following thoughts on this topic are advisory from the two of us: They have no official standing within even our department, and certainly not within the Institute. Nonetheless, we hope you find them useful.