As a writer, I frequently use ChatGPT and believe there shouldn’t be too much controversy surrounding it if it's used correctly. I view ChatGPT as an assistant. You can use it to help draft or rewrite material, but just like with a human assistant, you must review its output carefully.
There have been stories of lawyers who used ChatGPT to write legal briefs without reviewing the results, only to discover it included fabricated citations. But that’s no different than assigning a task to a junior associate and failing to verify their work. The responsibility still lies with the professional.
I sometimes use ChatGPT to generate rough drafts based on a known structure. But I always anticipate the need for revision, for several reasons:
ChatGPT fabricates references. I often can’t locate the sources it cites, even with extensive searching.
It can misinterpret material. For instance, when summarizing medical literature, it may infer a conclusion that seems plausible but wasn’t stated by the authors. This is especially frustrating when I want to quote something that ChatGPT claims was said, only to find it's not in the article.
Its tone doesn’t always match mine. When I ask it to rewrite something, I only use its version about half the time. The rest does not seem to be in my voice.
Overall, I see ChatGPT as a useful tool - powerful but imperfect. It speeds up early drafting and brainstorming, but nothing replaces careful review and thoughtful revision.
What is your experience with using AI to write?
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Good article.
I never use ChatGPT to write the first draft. I want the ideas and analyses to be mine—though I’m open to suggestions, whether from other people or from ChatGPT. I do use ChatGPT as a research tool, much like a supercharged Google search, but I evaluate the sources myself and decide which to include. I’ve never asked ChatGPT to insert links, so it doesn’t. It's not uncommon, however, for me to ask ChatGPT to polish a final draft. Because it’s working from my own words and ideas, it rarely (though not never) introduces errors.
For me, ChatGPT is a useful tool because I already know how to think, how to research, and how to write. The intellectual work happens in the first draft—and that’s mine.
My bigger concern is with young people. If they offload their thinking to ChatGPT, they may never learn to think for themselves. The temptation is real: let ChatGPT do all the work, not just polish the prose. But the struggle to research and write a first draft is where the learning happens. Educational psychologists refer to this as the “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD)—the space between what a learner can do easily and what they can only do with significant support. Real growth happens in the ZPD: it's uncomfortable, effortful, and sometimes frustrating—but it’s where thinking skills are forged.
—David
Let me explain further how I use ChatGPT for drafts. I am writing papers on how each of the 46 different types of breast cancer arises. This is somewhat speculative for many of the cancer types and is what I am most interested in. To write this, I review the literature, review my prior essays and do a lot of thinking, writing and rewriting.
However, I also want to write about the basics of each type of breast cancer and so I use ChatGPT to compose a draft of this "routine" information. I am a publisher of a pathology textbook and use our textbook to revise the ChatGPT draft as needed. I also review this several times. I suppose I could compose it myself instead of using ChatGPT as a draft, but find this to be more productive.