The other side of AI

Writing, thinking and creativity in an age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs such as ChatGPT have illuminated the previously quintessential human capacity for creating writing. This paper investigates the complex intersections between writing, thinking and creativity through addressing two key dichotomies that characterise any act of writing: namely, by first framing writing as either recording (already known) information or as an act of creation, and secondly, writing as the expression of convergent and/or divergent thinking. It speculates how each of these contrasting forces may intersect with AI in the academic writing space. It concludes by considering implications of these intersections for the practices of Academic Language and Learning Advisers and academic writing teachers.