I HAVE this week taken a typically Luddite approach to this column, using my human brain to process information into written words, in the style of enigmatic John Gulliver.

But for how long can this go on?

Many of you will have read stories about emerging Artificial Intelligence (AI) software, specifically ChatGPT, that can produce within seconds very detailed content – from comment articles and news stories to poems and school essays.

Using data from a billion web pages, it can create glossaries of terms or competently convert text between languages. It can mimic the mind of a teenager by introducing mistakes or slang phrases.

Bluntly, it can knock up an admirable piece of coursework largely untraceable to traditional plagiarism checkers.

Teachers at South Hampstead High School have decided to face the coming AI storm head-on by already setting up a working group about ChatGPT, holding staff briefings and an assembly with pupils on the topic before Christmas.

The private school also plans to update its curriculum to meet the challenges of what it described as the ideas of science fiction writers such as Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry becoming “mainstream”, in the biggest education game-changer since the creation of the internet.

In a blog published on the school’s website, deputy head Adam Westwood – I presume it is indeed he? – says ChatGPT could be used to aid revision, generate additional tasks, ideas for deeper research and even careers guidance.

Getting to the nub, he writes: “This incredibly powerful tool also has the capacity to do pupils’ work or homework for them – with very little effort”.

Mr Westwood says the AI – when aided by a process of repeated revisions and combing – could “independently generate work of Grade 9 or A* standard”, adding: “ChatGPT can even give long answers to open questions such as ‘write an essay in the style of a 15-year-old student explaining why Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and the consequences of that action’ – and then be given iterative guidance on how to improve the response until it is at the stage that the user is content with the output.

“Clearly this is a concern, as students using this tool to cut corners are not going to have the same benefits as those who don’t. They will not build their knowledge or revisit what they have already been taught; they will not build skills in, for example, research, essay writing, critical thinking and problem-solving at the same rate as their peers.

“There is also the risk of students becoming over-reliant on AI technology, as well as the more subtle issue that the AI output will have certain biases … It is for these reasons that several schools are blocking the websites for these AIs and banning their use.”

Mr Westwood said he would be meeting with students this term to discuss positive use of ChatGPT so the school could “start to build a curriculum that includes the prudent and beneficial use of AI”. I also understand teachers, nationally, are already using ChatGPT to construct lesson plans and create feedback for pupils – saving them time and potentially the kind of burnout that has led so many to walk out on strike against the government.