Dave Eggers warned OpenAI staff that ChatGPT harms student writing
The author told about 200 OpenAI employees that ChatGPT was making teachers’ jobs harder and taking students’ voices, according to the Financial Times.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
Dave Eggers used a 2025 appearance at OpenAI to deliver a sharp warning about ChatGPT’s effect on schools, according to reporting by the Financial Times cited by The Verge. His remarks matter because they brought a prominent writer’s critique of AI-generated writing directly inside the company behind one of the most widely used AI chatbots.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman invited Eggers to speak to roughly 200 company employees, The Verge reported. Eggers, known for novels, screenplays and journalism, did not use the appearance to discuss productivity or the mechanics of a writing career, according to The Verge’s account.
Instead, the Financial Times reported that Eggers criticized ChatGPT’s impact on education. He told OpenAI staff that the effect on teachers was “catastrophic” and said the company had made educators’ work far harder than it had been two years earlier, according to the Financial Times.
Eggers also focused on students’ use of AI tools for writing assignments, the Financial Times reported. He argued that if students rely on ChatGPT to compose their work, they may fail to learn how to write and may lose the chance to develop their own voice.
The Financial Times quoted Eggers as saying that students’ voices were being taken from them and that the result was “silencing an entire generation or two.” The Verge reported that the speech amounted to a direct rebuke of OpenAI from an invited guest.
A longtime critic of tech culture
Altman had reason to expect a critical view from Eggers, The Verge noted. Eggers wrote The Circle, a best-selling novel that The Verge described as a harsh critique of the technology industry.
Eggers has built a career across several parts of the literary world, according to The Verge. The publication reported that he has written novels, screenplays and journalism, started McSweeney’s, and founded schools and nonprofits that support writers and the arts.
The Verge also reported that Eggers has previously dismissed AI-generated writing as “pastiche nonsense.” That view aligns with the concerns he raised to OpenAI staff, according to the Financial Times account, which centered on whether automated text tools can undermine the process by which students learn to express themselves.
The report did not describe a public response from OpenAI to Eggers’ comments. It also did not say how employees in the room reacted to the speech.
The episode adds to the broader debate over AI tools in classrooms, with Eggers framing ChatGPT as a burden for educators and a threat to student writing, according to the Financial Times. His comments placed that criticism before the company’s own staff, rather than in a book review, campus talk or policy forum.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.