Should AI be allowed in spelling bees?

  

I’m always surprised when I hear about the popularity of spelling bees. We never had them growing up. Who needs to spell in rural Saskatchewan, eh? 

I’m kidding, spelling was a big deal back in the 1980s. When all we had were pens and paper, it looked sloppy if you misspelled. But in today’s digital world, almost everything is corrected for us (or incorrectly autocorrected for us). 

I’ve become increasingly reliant on spellcheck in my own documents as I occassionally misspell a word (you catch that?) Usually, it’s the same ones over and over again, which is embarassing (another one).  

Are you a better speller than most? Try reading the following paragraph I wrote and see how many mistakes you can identify: 

I never realized how horible a speller I was until my teacher forced me to write on the chak board fiftey lines of: “My spelling is bad but my grammer is worse.” I always beleived I had a nack for spelling. I even spelled corectly chrysanthemum to win our class’s spelling bee, but its the simple words I struggel with. Definately need help. That’s why I’m so releived artificial inteligence is coming. No more unneccessary proof reading! AI will make spelling irrelevent! You won’t have to feel stupid anymore for the ocassional misspelled word because of English’s many inconsistancies. I mean, who came up with the spelling of through? Why should it be spelled differently then when writing about someone who thru a ball? Makes no cents! Spelling is so old school, I’ll be glad when it’s obsalete.  

Based on my count, there are 18 spelling errors and 3 grammatical errors in that paragraph. If you identified at least half of them, you're likely on par with the common man/woman. If you identified 12, you're what we might call “educated”. If you identified 16 or more, you’re an English major (likely not, but if it makes you feel better). 

For most of us who grew up pre-internet, pre-smart phone and pre-AI, spelling is not a huge issue. But I do wonder whether it’s being lost on some younger folks. Or whether it will get lost over time.  

We are already being confronted with much larger issues of whether to use AI to write for us. As I write this blog, an icon follows along in the margins, offering to write for me. I've used it once when writing fiction. In that case, the AI tool did in fact write better than me. The problem was, it didn’t sound like me. When you suddenly sound like Shakespeare, people figure it out. 

Recently, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., issued a 522-page report called, “The MAHA Report: Making Our Children Healthy Again” with numerous errors because it was generated, in large part, by AI. This is so much worse than a student using ChatGPT to write an essay on how AI will bring about world peace through nuclear annihilation (that's a joke). This is government policy, concerning the well-being of children, being dictated by what a computer found on the internet! While AI can be an incredible tool for research, it can’t be the sole tool. As any first-year university student will tell you, it can be inaccurate, redundant, in some cases, makes things up (AI has a tendency to “hallucinate”). 

If we’re already at the point where heads of government are relying on AI for their research reports, then we’re in trouble. What little trust the public had in government will be completely washed away. It doesn’t matter if every word is spelled correctly, the content will still be garbage. 

In other words, spelling bees can only take us so far. 

Time to start the research report writing bee. 

I know, not as fun.