The Art of Real Thinking in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Kanwit said he designed his course because he thought young people would be interested, and that he was interested in "engaging with them over what the studies have to say about AI and writing-whether it gets in the way of developing our voices or gets in the way of developing our own thoughts."

"Where does it get in the way and where does it help? Should we use it at all?"

The class also considers AI through the lens of cultural studies. "Can we analyze an AI-produced text or image in the same way we would look at a human product?" he asks. "I am interested in having them help figure this out."

Over the course of the semester, each student writes four essays. They first turn in a draft and after receiving feedback, turn in a rewritten version. "The premise is that writing is a process, and you're going to produce better writing with feedback," Kanwit said.

Because his seminar is also examining AI, Kanwit asks that they seek feedback not just from him, their classmates, and writing assistants, but also from AI. This way, they can compare human and machine responses and even evaluate which source they end up trusting more.

Their final essay prompt is to outline a problem related to AI and and propose a solution. Past paper topics have focused on energy, water, privacy, surveillance, aligning AI with human values, and art. One even suggested that Bowdoin build its own sustainably powered data center.

Jacob Colton '29, a learning assistant for the course, joined the students for the first half of the class. He said he had taken the course last year, choosing it among the many seminar options, because he wanted to think about "how to use AI as a tool and how to use it ethically."