In a recent essay republished from The Conversation, University of Denver professor Billy J. Stratton warns that reliance on artificial intelligence threatens critical thinking and the deep, faith‑rooted engagement that literature demands. He stresses that educators should help students distinguish AI’s pattern‑recognition abilities from its lack of lived experience, imagination, and genuine empathy.

AI Can’t Replicate Human Perspective

Stratton notes that large language models can produce passable summaries, but they fall short when asked to capture the emotional atmosphere of a Southern Gothic scene. When his students prompted AI to analyze a passage from Carson McCullers’s 1940 novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, the response was sterile, misidentified a bus as a train, and missed the profound dread and faith‑based tension that define the work.

Teaching Through Contrast

In his class, students were tasked with prompting AI to generate a new scene involving three characters. The output featured John Singer, a deaf character, but the model could not grasp the lived reality of deafness. Stratton argues that this illustrates AI’s inability to embody human experience—a core component of literature, art, and faith.

Human Traits as Counterweights to AI

While tech leaders such as Elon Musk and Marc Andreessen view empathy as a weakness, Stratton contends that emotion, intuition, and irrationality are the very forces that make literature powerful. He urges students to embrace these traits rather than mask them with chatbots.

Practical Guidance for Educators

Stratton acknowledges that AI can be a useful tool for some tasks, but he cautions against over‑reliance. He likens the luxury of completely avoiding AI to the ability to hire domestic help—many families cannot afford that option. Instead, educators should teach students to use AI responsibly while preserving the essential human capacities of imagination, self‑reflection, and faith‑informed insight.

Conclusion

By confronting AI head‑on and highlighting its limits, teachers can safeguard the development of critical thinking, creativity, and the Christian worldview that undergirds much of Western literature. Stratton’s call to action is clear: students must learn to wrestle with ideas themselves, lest AI erode the very fabric of thoughtful, faith‑grounded education.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.