BERKELEY, Calif. — A hush fell over UC Berkeley’s Interpreting Shakespeare class this past Thursday morning as third-year Bea Hind inadvertently revealed her academic integrity with six quick words. When asked by classmate Rob Otick what the professor was talking about, Hind replied, “She’s talking about AI, like ChatGBT.” Sources say all 40 heads in the classroom spun around to identify the Shakspeare-reading student, while tears of joy welled up in the professor’s eyes.
“I can’t believe it!” exclaimed Otick, a semi-literate English major himself. “Someone really reads this 1600’s bullshit. All I know is that Othello is a board game and my midsummer night’s dream is a girl on either side of me if you know what I’m saying. Might have to tell them to come back for a twelfth night! Nah, but ChatGPT knows those stories much better than I ever will. It wrote my most recent paper within seconds and all I had to do was paste in the prompt. I can feel my brain turning more and more into mush with every query! Plus, the professor will never know.”
Professor Clewdin did in fact know.
“The cheating in the classroom is rampant,” Professor Clewdin sighed. “I know Shakespeare is hard, but these kids can’t do anything themselves nowadays. Yesterday, I caught a boy using ChatGPT to write what I had thought was a paper, but it was actually a birthday text to his girlfriend! ‘Make it more thoughtful,’ he prompted. All kids used to be like Bea, critically thinking and appreciating Shakespeare’s word, but now it’s just her. Bless her heart. At least I’ve had years of experience and discipline without ChatGPT, so I am not totally incompetent. Plus, I’m more of a Notebook LM girlie anyway.”
At press time, Hind was spotted “keeping it old-school,” with her Chegg subscription freshly renewed.