{"id":9974,"date":"2026-04-04T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-professor-typewriters\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:00:00","slug":"ai-professor-typewriters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/ai-professor-typewriters\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Forces College Professor to Get Typewriters for Entire Class"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Meme wisdom holds that modern problems require modern solutions, but what peddlers of this internet adage failed to consider is that an antiquated and possibly impractical approach could be loads more fun.<\/p>\n

We present Grit Matthias Phelps, a German language instructor at Cornell University who\u2019s rebelling against a world gone mad with AI fever and pervasive brainrot by compelling students to use typewriters in class, the Associated Press <\/em>reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an exercise she only conducts once a semester, but seems to leave a lasting impression on her pupils. Suddenly, they\u2019re forced to depend not on screens, but on themselves and their classmates. The closest thing they hear to an attention-span destroying notification is the ding of the typewriter bell letting them know that they only have a few characters left on a line.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt dawned on me that the difference with typing on a typewriter is not just how you interact with the typewriter, but how you interact with the world around you,\u201d computer science major Ratchaphon Lertdamrongwong, a sophomore, told the AP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile writing the essay, I had to talk a lot more, socialize a lot more, which I guess was normal back then,\u201d Lertdamrongwong added, referring to when typewriters were the norm. \u201cBut it\u2019s drastically different from how we interact within the classroom in modern times. People are always on a laptop, always on the phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Phelps said she began the exercise in the spring of 2023 after becoming frustrated with students using AI and online translation tools to complete assignments. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of me reading it if it\u2019s already correct anyway, and you didn\u2019t write it yourself? Could you produce it without your computer?\u201d Phelps told the AP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

She scrounged together some typewriters she thrifted and started including an \u201canalog\u201d assignment in her course syllabus; the purpose was to give students an idea of what learning was like before digital tech.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a widely applicable blueprint for tackling AI\u2019s intrusion into education, but it does evince a broader trend of how schools and colleges are reverting to more analog practices to subvert it<\/a>. Some intructors now favor administering oral exams and requiring handwritten notes. Word documents are being traded for blue book essays composed in class<\/a>. Meanwhile, more high schools are experimenting with banning phones during school hours<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis might sound bad, but I was forced to actually think about the problem on my own instead of delegating to AI or Google search,\u201d Lertdamrongwong told the AP<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Catherine Mong, a freshman in Phelps\u2019 Intro to German class, called the assignment of typing a poem \u201cfun and challenging.\u201d She experimented using the typewriter to write fragmented poetry in the style of mid 20th century poet e e cummings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m probably going to hang them on my wall,\u201d Mong said, proudly. \u201cI\u2019m kind of fascinated by typewriters. I told all my friends, I did a German test on a typewriter!\u201d<\/p>\n

The most brutal lesson, however, was a physical one: most of the students learned that their feeble fingers weren\u2019t strong enough to touch-type on the stiff contraptions.<\/p>\n

More on AI:<\/strong> Students Renting Smart Glasses to Cheat on Tests<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The post AI Forces College Professor to Get Typewriters for Entire Class<\/a> appeared first on Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Meme wisdom holds that modern problems require modern solutions, but what peddlers of this internet adage failed to consider is that an antiquated and possibly impractical approach could be loads…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,198,3842],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-education","category-future-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9974\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}