Recommendation letters written by teachers are an integral part of applying to college for most seniors. According to The Atlantic, the practice of using artificial intelligence (AI) to write recommendation letters has become more common among teachers all over the world, sparking debates among the global academic community.
While many question the ethics and feasibility of using AI for these letters, I believe that teachers should be able to employ AI to write recommendation letters for students if they deem it necessary.
The greatest benefit of using AI to write recommendation letters is how much time it saves.
Teachers often receive a large volume of students asking for recommendations, making time an extremely valuable resource. When teachers write letters entirely themselves, the process takes longer and they can accommodate fewer students.
Many argue that teachers reserve the right to decline requests for letters of recommendation and perhaps this might be better than using AI to write letters instead. However, to that point, I would ask if it is ethical
to turn a student away, even at the last minute, from a letter that could make or break their future. Students are under copious amounts of pressure, so being late in asking for a recommendation is understandable.
Is it really ethical for a teacher to turn that student away when they can produce a perfectly good letter for the student within minutes using AI, potentially enabling the student to get into their dream school?
AI also completely eliminates concerns of grammar and poor sentence structure by proof reading, which increases the quality of letters written by teachers who aren’t confident in their writing ability. AI produces letters completely devoid of grammatical errors and the writing is often clear, concise, and direct, thus fostering a positive reading experience for colleges.
Teachers are overworked and underpaid and don’t receive pay for writing these letters on their own time. If ethics are an issue, then shouldn’t we also question the ethics of expecting teachers to spend their unpaid personal time to write recommendation letters?
Teachers are writing these letters out of the goodness of their hearts and their wish to see their students succeed. I believe that, as an academic community, we need to adapt to the ever-changing technological
landscape and allow teachers to use any tools they may require to optimize their writing experience and the student recommendation letters.