By Tim Devine
Outsourcing your writing to AI is tantalizing because of its sudden ubiquity. Despite the convenience, there’s a hidden cost when you transfer your agency as a writer. It robs you of crucial cognitive development.
Composing your own thoughts is powerful – even in the age of AI – because writing shapes you as an independent and adaptive thinker. As military professionals, developing our thinking remains indispensable.
AI is transforming our society, reshaping industries from healthcare to higher education and bringing to life futuristic forms of social interaction. Some claim that large language models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot are fundamentally changing how we learn. Though not tech-savvy, even I am leaning more on generative AI tools as handy virtual assistants.
Likewise, the tidal wave of AI is crashing into our profession of arms. Many units now use AI to create more realistic and challenging training and wargames. Others are experimenting with AI-powered tools for battlefield analysis and support to mission command systems. Adversaries are developing AI tools for military use.
In short, AI is everywhere – and it is compelling us to reexamine, well, everything. Retaining our agency in writing is a helpful way to make sense of a world suddenly co-inhabited by AI, while simultaneously learning how to leverage the technology responsibly.
“Writing is Thinking”
As an instructor, I’m now witnessing the impact of AI firsthand in our professional military education courses. I’m grading papers enhanced by, or in some cases entirely generated by, sophisticated AI writing tools.
I initially felt this behavior was dishonest. To be clear, in these settings, failure to cite AI use is plagiarism; submitting work created wholly or substantially by AI is cheating.
I quickly recognized the issue is far more complex. AI is becoming ubiquitous in our daily lives and in our operating environments. We should learn how to use these tools for our benefit, but it’s important we use AI in ways that comply with our values.
Some purists believe AI has no place in writing. After all, isn’t the purpose of writing assignments to demonstrate the ability to write clearly and convincingly? AI has shattered that paradigm – whether we like it or not – and there’s no going back.
Rather, writing sharpens our abilities to think critically and creatively. As David McCullough, a prolific historian and writer, is credited with saying, “Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.”
Critical thinking allows us to analyze and solve problems, make informed decisions, and exercise sound judgement. Creative thinking nudges us to contemplate novel approaches beyond traditional norms and boundaries.
Together critical and creative thinking represent our more conscious, rational, and effortful form of human cognition, which is seed corn for adaptation.
Practice Remains Important
A memorable line comes to mind from the 1992 film A League of Their Own about women’s professional baseball. Jimmy Dugan, the team’s gruff manager played by Tom Hanks, explains the merits of a game where players routinely fail.
“It’s supposed to be hard,” Dugan proclaims. “If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard… is what makes it great.”
Baseball and writing have a lot in common, especially when it comes to performance. Professional athletes aren’t just players. They are students of the game. Off the field, they train relentlessly even when performing at their best.
Similarly, writing is the best practice for thinking, which is fundamental to our performance in the military regardless of rank or specialty. Moreover, writing offers us a means for learning how to use AI wisely by enhancing our cognitive skills – not substituting them.
The temptation of over relying on AI is impossible to ignore. Moments drafting a prompt will ostensibly generate a polished result. This is a rash approach. AI writing tools deliver a response, not the truth per se. In some cases they amplify misinformation and generate disinformation.
A growing body of research suggests that relying heavily on AI may lead to diminishing returns. For example, an MIT study titled “Your Brain on ChatGPT” finds that overuse of AI when writing leads to “cognitive debt,” or a mental decline resulting from offloading tasks that normally require brainpower.
Outsourcing your writing robs you of crucial cognitive development, thus weakening the very foundation of our profession – one that relies on independent and adaptive thinkers who can overcome friction and ambiguity. Instead, learning to write by using AI as a tool, not a crutch, will improve your thinking and your performance as a professional.
Writing helps us communicate effectively, gain empathy, and recognize bias (including our own). Routinely generating meaningful prose fosters lifelong learning and growth. The writing process can be cumbersome and feel like a chore, but “the hard” is truly what makes it great!
AI is Here to Stay
The temptation to offload your writing on AI isn’t going away but is in fact rising. AI will likely evolve into Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, outstripping human capabilities in many areas, including composition.
It’s important we know the risks. AI generates useful results, but it’s our responsibility to verify their accuracy and judge when to reject negative content, particularly in cases of emergent misalignment: a phenomenon where AI produces undesirable, derogatory, or even harmful comments.
Plots once confined to science fiction films like The Terminator are no longer entirely farfetched. A real-world ‘Skynet’ scenario where AI becomes “self-aware” is now plausible. (Eerily, my Word document crashed when I wrote this).
Perhaps these fears are overblown. Many proponents foresee AI creating a net positive for society, possibly preventing arms races and avoiding war altogether. Let’s hope so, but our responsibility lies in ensuring that AI supports our thinking – and does not replace it.
Writing is where we can draw the line.
Some may judge writing in the age of AI is like navigating by map and compass given the omnipresence of GPS. Both involve basic skills, but unlike orienteering, human cognition is foundational to everything we do.
Our reasoning informs our choices and guides our behavior, so practicing how to think better by writing is arguably the most important developmental exercise we can undertake. Correspondingly, retaining agency over our thought process is critical to navigating new surroundings where AI is abruptly surrounding us.
Tools for Helping Us Adapt
AI can help us gain efficiency as writers by performing mundane tasks such as transcribing notes or drafting simple email replies. Its utility shines when elevating our thoughts by offering a personalized learning experience.
In fact, I used generative AI for this article (a first for me when writing for publication) in addition to considering thoughtful comments from human editors. While I discarded some suggestions from AI as trivial, ironically, one tool suggested I address counterarguments by explaining the benefit of AI beyond composition.
Touché, AI – point taken! In addition to composition, AI can help us find resources, bounce ideas around, and distill our words more clearly. Of note, the feedback I received from other people was the most beneficial. Still, using AI in moderation when writing can enhance our work, while reinforcing its responsible use.
Writing without relying on advanced writing tools is not just about preserving a skill. It’s about safeguarding our abilities to think critically and creatively, which are indispensable in our profession.
The lure of outsourcing your writing and, more importantly, outsourcing your thinking is mounting. In the age of AI, not only will you profit by brandishing your own pen but also our profession will be better for it.
Tim Devine is a U.S. Army strategist and instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He is passionate about writing – among other vital topics such as baseball and films.
