Earlier this semester, I (Micah) was sitting in the library, minding my business. I couldn’t help but overhear two nearby students discussing their housing chances for next year. Specifically, these two students were talking about a previous article of mine which detailed the host of housing occupancy changes for the 2026-27 academic year. But then the two students did something unexpected. They put my article into ChatGPT to summarize it — apparently the 1,037-word article was too long for them. I was bemused, then amused, then a little concerned. What does it say that some of our fellow Kenyon students cannot get through a single Collegian article without using artificial intelligence to shorten and alter it?
My (Sacha’s) brutally honest truth is that it’s embarrassing to rely on AI for reading and writing. If you use it to synthesize readings, fix up sentences or fabricate entire papers, that tends to make me think one of two things: Either you were too lazy to do the work yourself (not a good look) or you weren’t capable of doing it yourself (and worse, didn’t care to try). Be brave, Kenyon — write badly, struggle with dense texts, learn to edit (and edit again, and again, and again…). When you choose to use AI for these things, make sure it’s a genuine choice and not something driven by an inability to read and write on your own. Besides, as a Kenyon student, if you aren’t at least willing to try to be a passable reader and writer, what are you even paying for?
I (Dorothy) have wanted to be a writer since I was two years old. Whenever I bring this up, someone inevitably jokes that AI is going to steal my job. Not to sound conceited, but for the sake of good literature, I really hope that isn’t the case. Imagine a future where the words you consume — fiction, journalism, song lyrics, movie scripts, et cetera — are primarily written by AI. That would be so boring! (You know I’m right — just scroll LinkedIn for five minutes and you’ll see how dreadfully dull ChatGPT-speak is.) When you outsource your writing to AI, you rob the world of the opportunity to hear your unique voice. Sure, your writing may not be perfectly polished, but that’s what makes it human. I hope I can speak for everyone when I say I’d rather read an incoherent mess written by a real person than one more “It’s not just X — it’s Y.”
We, the Collegian executive team, come to you, the reader, with a humble request: Don’t let AI speak for you. Do your own writing. And if that’s still too much to ask, at least keep your sticky little AI-using fingers far away from our newspaper.
Sincerely,
Sacha, Dorothy and MicahThe staff editorial is written by Editors-in-Chief Sacha Franjola ’26 and Dorothy Yaqub ’26 and Executive Director Micah Arenstein ’26. You can contact them at franjola1@kenyon.edu, yaqub1@kenyon.edu and arenstein1@kenyon.edu.