[hfbff]

Text generating models are so much more than spell checkers, but allow me to make a comparison .

Before spell checkers, having good spelling was relatively difficult and it allowed employers/teachers/etc to separate the "good" people from the "bad". After spell checkers became ubiquitous (unless you have to handwrite!), having good spelling became the norm and the floor becomes much higher. A document with bad spelling means the person doesn't know of spell checkers (a sign that the person isn't computer savvy enough?) Or doesn't care enough.

Did spell checkers reduce the language capacity of students? Maybe they did start putting less attention into spelling, but I would argue it's ok because now we have more assistance. If you really want to test their spelling, you can always do a handwritten, in class quiz.

ChatGPT and the like may be different because they are written the whole thing, right? Well, kind of. You still need to give the prompt to express what you want to say. You still need to correct stuff and exercise judgment to see if the style in this paragraph is ok, if the facts stated over in that other paragraphs are ok. Besides, you still need to learn how to write because of the in class quiz next week.