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I'm sure it's not just me, but I felt vulnerable. Feeling like my professional demise was coming soon. I felt redundant, questioning, "Do students even need me?" In class, I felt pressure to sound smarter than AI. I turned up the academic jargon, but I was met with confused faces and blank stares...talking android only made me feel worse.

I confided in my dean that grading felt futile. Students’ submissions were on a Ph.D.-level of academic jargon...spouting other-worldly theories even I didn't know about. They were out-obfuscating me by a mile. Trying to grade hundreds of papers was like descending into "ChatGPT Psychosis."

I felt trapped and demoralized, fearing the worst for my career...and my mental health.

My epiphany moment

Came out of the blue. From just five words that weren't even for me.

I chanced upon a LinkedIn post by a close friend and distinguished journalist. He's worked for CNN, The New York Times, Gannett and is now the editorial director and AI strategist for Hearst Newspapers—the largest publisher of magazines and private newspapers nationwide.

Few people have Derrick Ho's resume. People listen when he talks about AI. Just five words summed up his approach to adopting AI: .

Derrick and I shared memorable years during grad school at the University of Missouri, home to one of the nation's top journalism schools. Alongside my fiancée Valerie—also a writer and journalist—we made music, cooked Singaporean dishes to remind us of home and hung out. We talked life, love and faith...in the comfort of Singlish.

We saw each other through tough times...but right now, his words were giving me a tough time. The more I chewed on them, the more I found them enlightening and lightening. I felt a burden lift, as I slowly saw the light.

His five words gave me new eyes to see, and it helped me craft my courses with an enthusiasm and confidence that I'd lost. It turned me from hopeless to hopeful, and it's sharing this hope that compelled me to write this.

I'm not afraid of AI anymore, and Derrick is right. It's as simple as being human.

I'm not afraid of AI anymore because I'm human 

We are in a moment we sociologists call a "cultural lag". AI is changing our lives. It's HERE and unavoidable, but we don't quite know how to live with it. We are lagging and we hate being behind. I wrote this to chart a way for us to "catch up" with AI: to THRIVE and not just survive this tech revolution.

Thanks to Derrick's five simple words, I simply focus on being human. I am more motivated than ever. The dread and fear are gone, and I am working hard with AI, and not against it.

What I'm about to suggest is simple...but not easy. I hope you'll hear me out. Reading this might take a load off you too, like it did for me. I'm going to show you how AI is helping me teach my students to: 1) be better humans, and 2) connect better with other humans.

Teaching my students to be better humans 

It's really important for me that I teach students to care, and I believe at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ¹ÙÍø, we do this well. In fact, I feel that's the whole point of education. How can I get students to care about what they do, care for others and for the good of all?

I realized the answer was to make their learning meaningful. Instead of playing AI "cat and mouse," I decided to stop playing that game. In class, I told students plainly, "I don't want to focus my efforts on policing you. I want to guide you toward your best work...to propel you to grad school or a future career."

I was setting the terms of our relationship: I wanted to be their advocate and not their adversary. I wanted their time in college to be meaningful. Not a game of dodgeball.

Advocating for my students has taken them far. The graduates in the photo above, Diego and Kal, made it to law enforcement.

It's human to take pride in what we do. I'm pretty sure most people feel more pride in their creative work than in what they get away with. So, I encourage students to be human and take ownership of their learning by creating artifacts they can be proud of.

I now apply this principle to all projects, and I'll use AI to get there: these aren't just for getting grades, these are creative opportunities for students to build their own life's work. I shift my orientation away from myself as professor; it's not about me. This compels me to craft student-centered assignments that give them the best possible chance for future success.

I believe my approach is consistent with this New York Times article, , that calls educators to reimagine assignments and assessments. The author asks us to shift from memorization and regurgitation toward creativity, synthesis and critical thinking that AI can support but not replace. So, it's up to me to do the hard work of crafting assignments and projects in my courses that AI can support but not replace.

It's not just my students...I can't be lazy either!

Now, they can choose to sabotage their own futures and take shortcuts. My students will tell you how often I've said to them, "You aren't doing me any favors by completing your work because these assignments are FOR you." This is true in every sense of the word. This became tremendously freeing; I put the onus on them to set high standards for themselves. I get out of the way, turn the focus on their human agency to determine their own path and echo Derrick by gently imploring them, "Be human, don't be lazy."

Teaching my students to be better humans, I predict, is going to be refreshing. I felt this for real after a recent with my students. This feeds into my next point about how AI can be a tool to better connect students with other humans, which can be a game-changer for them personally, academically and even professionally.

Be human by better connecting with other humans

This semester, I was dreading the idea of teaching a class of 30. I was hoping to split this class with another instructor, but it didn't work out. I balked at the prospect of staring down hundreds of AI submissions.

I was nervous about teaching American Ethnicity and Pluralism for the first time. Feeling especially vulnerable, I put on my armor and used every weapon in my arsenal to write AI-proof questions... contorting and twisting my instructions with every huff and puff. The armor was becoming a real drag, and I was getting tired and demoralized.

I felt myself losing my spirit as an educator. Why was I putting booby traps in front of my students to make them prove that they are learning? Or worse still, was I trying to show them who's boss? I stopped what I was doing. Closed my eyes and went back to Derrick's words. Like the North Star, it guided me back to the right path.

My eyes lit up when an idea hit me. I wanted my class to experience America's ethnic diversity and not just read about it. I decided that experiential learning would be a HUGE part of this class, something I hadn't done for similar classes on race that have been reading-heavy.

As absurd as it sounds, AI was going to help me connect my students with other humans.

I took a deep breath, sat at the edge of my seat and psyched myself, "be human, don't be lazy." Instead of fighting AI, I grudgingly made it my ally. It was an uneasy alliance...but I decided to give it a shot. There at my desk in north Ï㽶ÊÓƵ¹ÙÍø that day, I decided out-field assignments were going to be a big part of this course.

The first one would be a mosque visit. Within a second, Co-pilot pulled up a list of mosques in the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ¹ÙÍø/Clovis area for me. I gathered contact info and crafted emails asking if we could visit. I also used AI to generate a list for appropriate dress code and mosque etiquette just to prepare my students.

I heard back from , which was great since it was close to campus. After some back-and-forth with Imam Ramadan (Fabulous guy. Speaks nine languages.), I had a visit in place! There was more work to be done; communicating with my students about attire and behavioral expectations. Carpooling. Confirming numbers. Prodding students to attend. Crafting the response assignment, etc.

But I was actually excited. I felt light. I was eager to read their reflective assignments on the visit and what they were going to learn in a mosque down the street about America's diversity.

The visit went well! It was my first time meeting these students in-person since this is an online course. I was glad to put human faces to names and assignments.

It dawned on me this visit engaged all their senses: they saw the mosque with their own eyes, they heard the prayers, they felt the texture of the carpet, they smelled and tasted the warm samosas prepared for us, they shook hands with Imam Ramadan and others who welcomed us. What is more human than that?

I'm glad I had AI's help to pull this off...and it didn't leave me feeling like a poseur. In fact, the experience was enriching and revitalizing. I felt a strong connection with my students even though this was our first time meeting each other.

The assignments are trickling in, but here is a sample from three students of how this human-to-human connection impacted them:

• "...just being able to experience being in a mosque with a different religion and different beliefs was amazing as it is something that I would have likely not experienced without this class."
• "I noted people of possible Middle Eastern, Hispanic, Indian, Asian and Caucasian descent. The group was very diverse, and the people seemed to range in their practices. There was even a Catholic minister in attendance in support of his Muslim friends. This was a glimpse of America’s ethnic diversity. It was a place where people of different backgrounds and cultures gathered."
• "They addressed us with a smile, inviting us to ask questions. They did not put their ideas on us but rather just invited us in. I felt safe. I saw that this is their way to worship just as we worship...They seemed comfortable, talking to each other in their language. It felt like they had deep connections which was beautiful to encounter."

This visit did more in an hour than I could have done in two weeks of teaching. No AI-generated content could replace or adequately account for what they experienced—specific to a particular people, place and time.

I'd also posted my own reflection on this visit, and it was even before I thought of writing this article:

"I’m reminded we are humans first and members of our religions second. They treated us as fellow humans with their warm hospitality. Something my Ï㽶ÊÓƵ¹ÙÍø students will not soon forget.

Why do our religious neighbors sometimes reflect our faith more than our own people...or me? Are we teaching students to be humans first before their membership to a religion, race or ideology? I hope so."

This encounter with our religious neighbor affected me deeply and made me want to be a better human...and a more faithful follower of my own religion.

I am excited that they will have more opportunities to connect with other humans in this course, including visiting a Sikh Gurdwara and participating in a Langar (community meal) with the vibrant Punjabi community in California's Central Valley. They will also have to do service-learning as part of this course. They are going to connect with other humans and serve the common good. I am totally down with using AI to do that.

You can do it! Don't be afraid, just be human

When I started this essay, I tried to prepare you. My epiphany was, "simple, but not easy." I still believe this is true. Some of you reading this might be thinking, "It's easy for you...you're a social scientist."

While that is a fair pushback, I firmly believe there are ways that we can ALL figure out how to leverage AI to be better humans and connect with other humans regardless of academic discipline or profession. It's because we're human. AI isn't.

If you've read till this point, you've probably been able to deduce that no AI could write this article because it contains my lived experiences, feelings, passions and aspirations. I shared with you how I went from despair to hope. I made a choice to be vulnerable and let you in. This article is a piece of myself...for you. I wrote it to encourage you and give you hope. Human to human.

But, I'll be straight with you...I liberally used AI as my assistant to write this including resourcing for references, critiquing my phrasing, helping me consider appropriate synonyms, alternatives for sentence structure and A LOT more. Hoping that Derrick would approve of this article, I even asked AI, "How can I make this article read like a New York Times op-ed?"

The other side of the coin is that I put in many days and many hours of thought into writing this article. I debated with myself how much I should share. I wrote and deleted whole sections. It was hard work, but it was also therapeutic, and I had a strong sense of purpose driving me to finish writing this piece because I wanted my epiphany to help other people. Using AI doesn't have to make us soulless unless we let it. There's SO MUCH that you and I can do that AI can't...because we are human. AI isn't.

So don't be afraid. Don't be lazy, either. Be human, and the rest will fall into place. Don't take it from me...just ask my buddy Derrick.