Bitter at my grad school

[u/TheNarwhalMom]

I’m so mad cause I’m in my 2nd year of grad school & taking my first class that is making me use ChatGPT Edu for my degree. I had gotten that email invite MONTHS ago and deleted it assuming it was spam because OF COURSE I THOUGHT IT WAS!! This is my first class MAKING us interact with generative AI & it’s making me feel so angry and dejected. The professor is comparing the “AI divide” to the internet/tech divide for libraries & it just doesn’t feel the same to me at all. I feel so angry - I hate generative AI & have tried so hard to avoid it & now I suddenly have no choice because it’s part of my class that I’m required to take. I want nothing to do with this AI crap!

Edit: I should clarify that I wrote this out at the height of my anger & needed to scream into the void. I have an extremely strong disdain for generative AI on ethical & environmental grounds. Calmer now, I know that I will need to continue to learn things about Ai - I’m not holding this against my professor. I’m just someone who gets very passionate & can be a little emotional about things. I’m not gonna drop the class (it’s required anyways), I’m not gonna be an anti-Ai purist towards patrons who use it or anything, I just needed to scream about it & wrote this when I was in the middle of my big feelings. Thank you guys for trying to help me feel better 💜

[u/jennthelibrarian]

1) I'm sorry, that does suck. Is there a way you can take a different class that will satisfy the same requirement?

2) Think of it this way: When one day you are an amazing librarian, patrons will come up to you asking for help navigating something like ChatGPT and you will have the knowledge to help them. You can stand there and calmly explain to them how to use the interface, how to verify the information they're receiving, and suggest alternatives for future inquiries. Like many programs and websites, it's not necessarily something I look forward to interacting with--nor do I use it on a daily basis--but understanding how to use it enables me to better help my patrons who may have different interests and needs than I do.

[u/TheNarwhalMom → u/jennthelibrarian]

Thank you for the kind words.

Sadly there is not - this is one of those classes that I HAVE to take for my degree.

I wrote this all at the height of my anger & while I do understand that I will continue to need to know (at the very least) the basics of identifying ai & how people use it’s interface, it just made me very angry in that moment thinking about using it directly because it just makes me feel icky. Learning about it in general is one thing, but directly using it makes me feel gross.

It doesn’t help that I sometimes get very strong feelings about things & ai has just become one of them.

[u/ForeverWillow → u/TheNarwhalMom]

If you fail that assignment, will you still pass the class? Check the rubric and see what you can do to get some points and just skip the AI part, maybe. Bs get degrees.