AI invaded our lives as it does in the movies: fast and consuming. Except this danger isn’t the physical infantry of Ex Machina robots I expected; it is a perilous intelligence embedded deeply into the system humans rely most on: the computer. AI has the ability to recreate and replicate the writings, ideas, and art we create with our complex human brains with only a single prompt. AI creates this without initiative, perspective, or frame of reference. How can we determine the best approach to deal with the impending dominance of artificial intelligence?

In my community, the AI hegemon is mainly ignored. We continue to receive online assignments, research papers, and analytical essays, all of which an AI bot can easily create for us. However, my mythology professor posed an interesting and unexpected question.

“What is the good in an assignment if ChatGPT can easily compose the exact same thing for us?” he rhetorically inquired.

His response was just as unanticipated as the question he posed: “There is none. If AI can write an analytical essay on Achilles' heel, Freud, or the causation of the Trojan War, there is simply no good in the assignment at all.”

He proceeded to task us with increasingly creative assignments for the rest of the term, assignments that required us to be more contemplative, philosophical, curious, and imaginative than an essay would have. These assignments were too complex and needed too much context for an AI bot to complete. However, these assignments were also enjoyable, they were something I was excited to write and design rather than prompt AI to do for me. Undoubtedly, these creative assignments must have been much more delightful for my teacher to read as well.

Our first project was to research and explain our family's creation story, religion, or “focus tradition.” The purpose of this assignment was to interview a family member about their beliefs on the creation of the world. It was a task that AI simply does not have the power to perform yet, and it was an assignment that required us to be inquisitive about what our family members believe and why.

The second project was a spin-off of the first assignment. My group and I were required to combine our family's focus traditions, many Greek texts, and the first four chapters of the Odyssey. We, as a group, attempted to rewrite myths and intertwine contemporary opinions, primeval beliefs, biases, and religions. AI is a system coded to be unbiased and should not be able to form any position on the creation of the universe. This project was encrypted with a variety of religious perspectives and assumptions AI was unable to write, and thus, left it up to us to write a labyrinthine and captivating story about the construction of time and space.

My teacher, instead of desperately pushing back against AI, found a way to work with it to challenge us more than assigning us a standard five-paragraph essay would have. We learned how to have fun with his assignments and push the boundaries of Greek mythology and religion in an unconventional and introspective way. With that, perhaps we should embrace AI instead of running away from it.