This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.

Among the most tangible and immediate effects of the generative-AI boom has been a total upending of English classes. On November 30, 2022, the release of ChatGPT offered a tool that could write at least reasonably well for students—and by all accounts, the plagiarism began the next day and hasn’t stopped since.

But there are at least two American colleges that ChatGPT hasn’t ruined, according to a new article for The Atlantic by Tyler Austin Harper: Haverford College (Harper’s alma mater) and nearby Bryn Mawr. Both are small, private liberal-arts colleges governed by the honor code—students are trusted to take unproctored exams or even bring tests home. At Haverford, none of the dozens of students Harper spoke with “thought AI cheating was a substantial problem at the school,” he wrote. “These interviews were so repetitive, they almost became boring.”

Both Haverford and Bryn Mawr are relatively wealthy and small, meaning students have access to office hours, therapists, a writing center, and other resources when they struggle with writing—not the case for, say, students at many state universities or parents squeezing in online classes between work shifts. Even so, money can’t substitute for culture: A spike in cheating recently led Stanford to end a century of unproctored exams, for instance. “The decisive factor” for schools in the age of ChatGPT “seems to be whether a university’s honor code is deeply woven into the fabric of campus life,” Harper writes, “or is little more than a policy slapped on a website.”

Illustration by Jackie Carlise

ChatGPT Doesn’t Have to Ruin College

By Tyler Austin Harper

Two of them were sprawled out on a long concrete bench in front of the main Haverford College library, one scribbling in a battered spiral-ring notebook, the other making annotations in the white margins of a novel. Three more sat on the ground beneath them, crisscross-applesauce, chatting about classes. A little hip, a little nerdy, a little tattooed; unmistakably English majors. The scene had the trappings of a campus-movie set piece: blue skies, green greens, kids both working and not working, at once anxious and carefree.

I said I was sorry to interrupt them, and they were kind enough to pretend that I hadn’t. I explained that I’m a writer, interested in how artificial intelligence is affecting higher education, particularly the humanities. When I asked whether they felt that ChatGPT-assisted cheating was common on campus, they looked at me like I had three heads. “I’m an English major,” one told me. “I want to write.” Another added: “Chat doesn’t write well anyway. It sucks.” A third chimed in, “What’s the point of being an English major if you don’t want to write?” They all murmured in agreement.

Read the full article.

What to Read Next

AI cheating is getting worse: “At the start of the third year of AI college, the problem seems as intractable as ever,” Ian Bogost wrote in August. A chatbot is secretly doing my job: “Does it matter that I, a professional writer and editor, now secretly have a robot doing part of my job?” Ryan Bradley asks.

P.S.

With Halloween less than a week away, you may be noticing some startlingly girthy pumpkins. In fact, giant pumpkins have been getting more gargantuan for years—the largest ever, named Michael Jordan, set the world record for heaviest pumpkin in 2023, at 2,749 pounds. Nobody knows what the upper limit is, my colleague Yasmin Tayag reports in a delightful article this week.

— Matteo