For those interested in exploring GenAI as a part of the writing process, you should:
Write your thoughts out first. Write a shitty first draft, make mistakes, and work through your thoughts as you write. Don't use AI for those initial thoughts.
Avoid using GenAI to "think" for you. In academic environments, be very careful about using GenAI in any way that produces idea generation (i.e. getting the ideas/information from AI). As a student, working through the ideas and developing better skills around analysis, logic, and critical thinking is the point. See more on this below.
Use GenAI for clean-up work, such as suggesting revisions, fixing grammar, or rewording individual awkward sentences that you're struggling with.
If you use GenAI to do the "thinking" for you, you're risking the following:
You aren't working through the concepts, and therefore, you're missing the learning. This might not seem like a big deal for one assignment or one class, but this loss of learning will add up over time. Eventually, you will find yourself in more difficult classes unable to complete the work effectively, or you will find yourself in a workplace lacking the skills the complete your job.
The work created by GenAI is often sub-par. At first glance, it may sound impressive, but since it's ultimately an advanced version of predictive text, it doesn't actually know how to work through complex ideas. It tends towards vague and redundant, along with overstating claims and using biased language (i.e. it tends to sound like a sales pitch).
Please trust the process in this class and start with your own ideas and your own writing.