insAIne guilt

“I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.”

Shannon looks up from her phone at her friend, who’s nervously stabbing the wilty cafeteria salad on her plate. “You probably just have hangxiety.”

“No,” she shakes her head. “No, I thought that too, but it’s not that.”

She sighs and puts her phone down, sensing a rant coming. “Alright, what is it?”

“Ok, so I was at the library last night.”

Shannon squints at her friend.

“Archer wasn’t there.”

“Okayyyy.”

“I swear! I was at the library and it was maybe 11:15, and you know how I had to submit Professor Whalton’s assignment by midnight? I was only halfway done. So naturally I’m freaking the fuck out. I mean I wasn’t even close to the word count. I still had the whole counter argument section left. And next thing I know, ten minutes had passed, and I was just staring at my screen worrying about this.”

She pauses to massage her collarbone. Something she saw on TikTok as a quick anxiety fix, Shannon thinks.

“So then I’m practically hyperventilating, just watching the minutes change on my screen. My fingers got really itchy. I kept picking up my phone just to put it back down. Which I guess isn’t that weird, but it was like, I was absolutely paralyzed. I couldn’t get myself to keep going. I felt like I was watching my doom.”

“Why did you just ask for an extension?” Shannon asked.

“Because this was the extension! Everyone else submitted theirs on Monday, and I told her that I had a stomach bug.”

Shannon laughs and shakes her head. “So what, you had GPT write it?”

She turns bright red. “It’s bad, I know. I shouldn’t have!” She closes her eyes and tilts her head back as if faking agony for some hidden camera.

“She probably won’t even notice,” Shannon says, rubbing her back. “I know the profs think they can always tell, but I’m sure you removed all the signs, right?”

“Lower your voice!” She hisses, looking around frantically at the students settling into tables around them.

“Sorry,” Shannon whisper-shouts. “But it’s not like other kids haven’t been doing that for years.”

“I know, but it’s cheating. Dean Kenofti made that very clear.” She starts fumbling with her fork again. “Not to mention, it’s so bad for the environment.”

She drops the fork on her salad, and pushes the plate aside. “I can’t stand that I’m one of those lazy kids. Because honestly? It was so easy. Too easy. And I could totally see myself now just using that as a crutch whenever I’m in a pinch, which I hate to say it — is a lot.”

Shannon nods.

“I just had it scan my notes, and then it spit out this, like, perfect counter argument. I obviously proofread it and got rid of all those stupid ‘this is not merely a cultural shift; it’s a sociological transformation’ bullshit.”

Shannon laughs at her friend’s newscaster voice. “Yeah, good,” she encourages.

“But like,” she pauses as if scanning for the words on the table, “if I know I can get away with it, and that probably everyone on campus is doing this in some capacity, then really does it become imperative to use it? Will I fall behind if I just use my actual brain?”

Shannon opens her mouth to respond, but she interrupts. “And all the profs say it’s cheating and robbing us of critical thinking. I get that, we need critical thinking more than ever, truly. So then, by that logic, I'm cheating myself too.”

“True, in the long-run, I guess.” Shannon says.

“And unfortunately? I hate to admit it, but it was totally worth it. I submitted right on the dot, and Professor Whalton’s grade analysis scanned it, predicting an A-. I haven’t gotten an A- all year!

“Ok, so what’s done is done. Maybe chalk this up to a win and move on!” Shannon shrugs. “Next time, just make sure you start earlier.”

“Well, that’s the problem. I can’t get out of this paranoid loop where, like, I imagine someone walks by and happens to see me on GPT, and then reports me, and I get expelled. Sensing that Shannon is about to interrupt, she starts speaking faster.

“Or, or, I become addicted to using it, and I literally can’t have a single thought without checking it in GPT, and then everyone thinks I’m smart on paper, but when they meet me in person, I’m actually dumb? I keep obsessively clearing my history and restarting my computer. I can’t stop.”

She abruptly focuses her attention on Shannon. “Do you think it’s true that the administration really monitors our browsing remotely?”

Shannon purses her lips and considers lying.

“Well? Have you seen anything in the admin office?” She asks impatiently.

“Listen, all I know are the rumors I hear on my shift. It sounds like they do sometimes access certain laptops remotely.”

Her eyes widened dramatically. “No,” she whispers, clutching her chest like an old Southern lady in movies.

“But it’s only for kids under behavioral review, so you have nothing to worry about. Just don’t get caught jerking off to deep fakes of any professors like Sam Sherman, and you’ll be totally fine,” Shannon says.

“But what if Professor Whalton catches something I missed and reports me?”

“That won’t happen. I’m sure she has bigger things to worry about. I mean, at least you actually wrote half of it, right?”

“Yeah, that’s true.” She nods, still unsure.

Shannon gets up from the table with some excuse about running late for her nerdy business club. She’s desperate not to be alone, so she offers to walk her there, but Shannon insists she should go back to the house and watch Traitors or something to take her mind off this whole thing.

She grabs Shannon by the wrist. "Promise you won’t tell anyone?”

Shannon just laughs.

“Promise, Shan.” She says more seriously.

“I promise! God, you really need to relax. It’s not as if most people in here aren’t doing the same fucking thing.”

“Ok, ok, sorry.” She backs off. “Thank you. I’ll see you at home.”

“Yeah, see ya later.”

Shannon turns and practically runs out the door. She realizes she’s biting her nails, and shoves her hands in her pockets. Feeling stupid, she grabs her phone off the table, and jams her food tray onto the nearest conveyor belt.

It occurs to her how crazy it is that a machine can write a college-level essay, but they have this dishwashing system from the 2000s. Probably another funding issue, she thinks.

She feels a pit in her stomach, like she forgot something important. Then remembers it’s the guilt she’s been carrying around since she submitted that paper.

This is stupid. She thinks. I’m finally just keeping up with the times, she reassures herself. Harry Styles’ A Sign of the Times pops into her head. Her mom used to love that song. She pauses by the cafeteria entrance to rummage around her bag for her earbuds.

Just as she finds them, the digital billboard to her left changes screens. The words catch her eye: