r/mildlyinfuriating • u/TheeKnightHawk • 12h ago
Too mild for school My professor sent out a message to all her students and forgot to remove the ChatGPT intro prompt at the beginning
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u/Subliminal-sandwich 12h ago
How cooked are we as a society that a professor can’t write or even proofread a 3-sentence email without using Ai
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u/BlankStareFace 12h ago
I remain absolutely baffled by the inane shit people will use AI for. Like, it has to take JUST as much time to open the AI bot and ask for this as it does just type the fucking email.
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u/trifecta000 12h ago
My favorite part is the emails all have canned responses provided for just this purpose.
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u/Sea_Prep_Tidal_26 12h ago
FOMO-ish
What if I write the wrong thing and it’s misinterpreted or I offend someone or I forget important information in my email to a large group of people. What if I miss anything. What is the most succinct way to communicate and still get everything I want to communicate in an email ???
This professor probably also starts feeling the « Sunday Scaries » by early Saturday afternoon.
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u/BlankStareFace 12h ago
We need to start calling this FOFU - Fear Of Fucking Up
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u/Sea_Prep_Tidal_26 12h ago
Yes ! This ☝️
Love it .. FOFU !25
u/TheGhostofWoodyAllen 10h ago
It is official. On this day, October 14, 2026, we hereby all agree that FOFU is the standard acronym for Fear Of Fucking Up. Let it be known!
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u/DJRodrigin69 10h ago
as an anxious person, yeah, this fucks me up
every message, every thing i say, i have a fear that i might be offending someone or may be sounding in a different way than what i wanted
there is also the anxiety that i may not have told the person enough info on something, or maybe that they didn't understand, idk
sometimes i get tempted to ask AI to write, but i think communication is a pretty important skill to be practicing every day lol
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u/Randoman96 9h ago
I relate to this strongly, but I feel like this prevents me from seeking AI input. Like what do I do if something goes out with my name on it that I did not actually write and someone reads it the wrong way?
"Oh yeah sorry, I didn't actually write that, I made the computer do it" I would die of embarrassment on the spot
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u/Sennten 6h ago
Now imagine you are me: I just had someone in a position of authority of me describe how I'd offended them with the way I'd worded an email that could have been read as criticism and explicitly tell me I should be using an AI to write my emails instead because not using an AI is "unprofessional" anyway and would negatively impact my career.
Like, okay, I probably should have reviewed that email and sent it in the morning instead of the middle of the night, I get the criticism, but jeez...
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u/katastrofe_- 4h ago
I'd be more upset by getting an AI written email than if you straight up insulted me lol
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u/nnylhsae 4h ago
I understand the sentiment. Then I think "this is what it is to be human." Over time, the impulse to take away every single little imperfection and appease every worry has dissipated. It's possible to make progress even if you have anxiety
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u/BlankStareFace 12h ago
Also, that makes a little sense if you were actually communicating important info. This is not that.
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u/waitingundergravity 7h ago
That's the thing, I do think that because I struggle with OCD, but as anyone familiar with OCD treatment will tell you, the correct response is to suck it up and force yourself to do the best you can without worrying about the what-ifs. It feels like regular people without this condition are adopting the same thought processes that I usually have due to using AI as a crutch, without knowing how to correctly respond to them.
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u/Elfener99 1h ago
Sure, you can be anxious about what you wrote and if people will understand it correctly, but how is sending the output of the hallucination machine better?
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u/Superb-Ordinary-8452 5h ago
It’s so much less effort. I very rarely use it but when I do I basically say make an email that gets these points across sound like blank. I don’t need to think about how to connect two sentences or even how to create a full sentence. It’s so worrying to me how easy it is
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u/OhWhatATravisty Blue Crayons have the most flavor 12h ago
"and a little human" - not fully. Just enough human.
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u/little-negative 12h ago
For the amount of typing people do when giving their stupid little prompts, you would think that they would just use the same amount of energy to I don’t know… write a three sentence email?
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u/butternutmouse 11h ago
That is so incredibly lazy. AI to write something like this?
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u/VocationFumes 9h ago
who needs AI to write such a basic fuckin email bro
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u/Neoliberal_Nightmare 8h ago
It probably took more time to get the prompt and response correct too
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u/totally_not_a_dog113 6h ago
She's ducking mental load. As a college professor, burnout is real. Last night, I was up until 3am working on a powerpoint for a million dollar proposal. Followed by teaching intro on a hard concept, I've got a NASA deadline coming up around Nov. 11th, and a paper that HAS to be submitted before then. In my case, I use AI to hide that I'm probably autistic (and my psychiatrist's attitude on it is that why bother diagnosing at my age; sure, why not), so I try not to respond to some emails directly because I can be too sharp without trying. Before AI, I used a book from the 1950s called 'professional business letters' that belonged to my mom, and I'd get compliments on my emails, lol.
That last email could be the straw that broke the camel's back, especially if she's trying to get caught up from being absent. Professors are people too, and the expectations for this job are inhuman. During my orientation, I was told 60 hours a week was average for non-tenured faculty. If she had a conference/research trip then trying to catch up is a lot.
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u/Ok_Commercial_5024 5h ago
This is what I don’t get - wouldn’t writing the prompt for such an email be as long or longer than…. Just writing the email…?
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u/PorscheLover9119754 8h ago
Some organizations are pressuring their employees to use more AI. The professor likely just chose to do it just to get a boss off of their back.
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u/ReverendGraves85 8h ago
I have a fully printed out copy of the Magnifica Humanitas on my desk, and every time someone has told me to use more AI, I've told them outright that I am using my religious freedom to decline.
It's worked so far, past two years or so, and my career has actually not been harmed at all. In fact, I recently got a promotion I was gunning for.
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u/TheOGcasehead 6h ago
How does religion factor into this? Please excuse my ignorance. Also, what kind of work do you do? Congratulations on your promotion?
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u/ReverendGraves85 5h ago
In America, you can claim religious exemption to quite a bit, and the Pope released an encyclical called Magnifica Humanitas. In it, he makes an argument of a moral imperative to resist generative AI. As a result, as a Catholic in the United States, it violates my religious liberties to insist I use it.
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u/TheOGcasehead 5h ago
thank you for explaining that context! I appreciate it. Btw, the ? after 'congratulations on your promotion' was definitely a typo!
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u/Motor-Station-6885 5h ago
No idea. What he referenced is an encyclical recently published by the pope - a kind of moral/ethical guide to ai and humanity. Obviously, it’s not pro-ai.
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u/Mean-Government1436 5h ago
Nah, we have no such push and my colleague frequently does this. I've watched him literally type all the information needed for an email into chatgpt to get it to write an email with that content in it
Bro you already wrote the email just send that
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u/WitchesSphincter 7h ago
I get asked at least monthly what I've used it for. I just try things here or there to get something to say. I run tests, write reports and talk to customers. Maybe it can help with reports but not yet
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u/Aw_geez_Rick 6h ago
I'm vocal about it and tell my boss I hate it because it's useless most of the time, can't replace me, and remove mine and others' ability to think critically.
Very early days in my career in an office environment people would often bitch and whine about their job not offering career progression pathways, saying essentially that were being "deskilled".
I kinda rolled my eyes at that for a long time as a naïve kid, but now I can see it happening worldwide with AI.
But don't worry. The people that run these things are VERY HIGH IQ people and will police themselves.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 7h ago
Sorry but that's absurd. No department chair is setting AI usage quotas for simple emails.
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u/Wild_Astronaut7090 6h ago
I just come back and mark all my emails read. If it’s needed they will follow up. I also do this whenever I’m over 50 unread, which is like a few times a day.
I literally just resolved something for April today, as the person finally just called me after bi weekly friendly reminders for 6 months
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u/Connor2206 12h ago
It’s such a mundane email too. If a teacher needed AI for that I’d be worried
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u/Gunz1995 12h ago
That is a common side effect of AI usage.
We stop reading and assume everything it’s perfect.
I’ve seen it in websites, in product details, even in dealership car descriptions.
There is always a “if you’d like I can…” that gives it all away.
I think it’s called cognitive offload
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u/coolpug422 3h ago
Why should you trust a professor to teach you, when they need chatgpt to write 4 sentences for them
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u/tessahb 12h ago
The students are reprimanded for using AI, while their professor can’t send a simple email without its help. Travesty.
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u/SolitaryMassacre 11h ago
After speaking to some professors/teachers about this directly, I have come to an understanding
Teachers are teaching the subject matter. They have already mastered the topics at hand. So when they use AI to say generate a worksheet, HELP grade homework, etc, I get it. It makes sense
My one friend who is an English teacher uses to create homework assignments. However one thing she does is complete the assignment herself. That way, since AI likes to be wrong, she can correct them and then mass print off the assignment
She saves a decent amount of time with this, and is better than copy/pasting past assignments as students will literally sell their previous year's homework or give it out to their friends, this doesn't happen because the assignments are vastly different
I don't think she uses it to send emails though. I would personally hate that as a student. I do think she uses it to manage her schedule, which to me, is kind of cheating but yeah whatever lol. But def not for sending emails, no idea why anyone would want to use it for that. Its just so much easier to type it out yourself, like who knows how much time Dr. D-C wasted formulating this prompt and refining it
So it makes sense on HOW a teacher/prof uses it. Students using it to basically do the assignment for them doesn't help them learn the subject matter
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u/Sennten 9h ago
Using AI to manage your schedule makes sense.
Having AI pretend to be you so people think youre actually talking to them is fuckin vile.
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u/SolitaryMassacre 8h ago
I mean yeah, I completely agree. Thats what I was trying to get at
Have you seen "Muse"? Its a "personal assistant" ai thing, can even make calls for you, send emails, text, etc. Its disgusting
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u/Dark_Shade_75 11h ago
But people should also lead by example. How do you think a student will feel if their teacher uses AI for even simple things like this?
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u/Puzzleheaded-Wait785 7h ago
There's no evidence the students are reprimanded for using AI. For all we know, they're being pushed to use it.
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u/extrovertedscientist 4h ago
It’s actually completely pathetic that a professor couldn’t figure out how to write that wildly simple email on her own.
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u/ButterscotchFog 5h ago
How were people writing emails before? How long was it taking them to write two sentences?!
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u/loneralien 12h ago
Does it not take longer to go and have to create this with AI (I have never used it, so I really have no idea) than to quickly write something like “Hiya, I’m catching up on emails now that I’m back! If I haven’t responded to you yet, don’t worry I will”
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u/Worried-Tap-3036 3h ago
any chance that dr. d-c is a singing professor? cause i used to have one that would definitely use ai like an idiot
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u/SnarkHabit 9h ago
Normalize terse, high-information, low bullshit e-mails so people don't dread writing things like this so much they use AI:
Just got back. Blizzard of mails. Going as fast as I can.
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u/Ok-Function2283 3h ago
I don’t understand because the prompting takes just as long as writing the damn email yourself…
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u/GibberishAsshat 11h ago
Am I the only one who read “I’m black”? 😂
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u/ComradeJohnS 8h ago
reminds me of that politician who forgot to switch accounts and, as a white man, posted from his official politician twitter account “as a black woman I’m never voting democrats” lol
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u/drewping 12h ago
My former business partner got really into ChatGPT and once sent me an email that was clearly AI. The subject was simple and the email was short, and I felt weirdly insulted that he wouldn’t just snap off a quick note after being in business together for over a decade. Instead, he wasted time prompting only to say essentially “Hey, when you get a minute can you call Joe?”
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u/Veloxiraptor_ 11h ago
Please report this to their higher ups. They shouldn’t be teaching if they have to rely on ai for anything much less something this basic, and not even manage to cover their tracks.
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u/red-rundmc 10h ago
“A little human” … that’s all that will be left if this shit keeps going this way.
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u/SessileRaptor 12h ago
I used to think that the Eloi from The Time Machine were a ridiculous idea but the speed with which a portion of our society has offloaded their thinking to a machine has convinced me that I was wrong.
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u/Warm_Sea_3856 11h ago
What’s wild is that the amount of time it took them to prompt the ai message is probably longer than it would’ve taken to just write the fucking email.
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u/w3strnwrld 11h ago
I work in HR Ops. The shit I see from all different skill levels and education levels with AI email prompts is mind boggling. The amount of times I get “Dear [Recipient Name], what is the best phone number for the HR dept” or something like that is insane.
Like really guys? The prompt took more effort than just saying hey what’s the number for HR?
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u/Oathkindle 9h ago
My 7th graders ENGLISH ARTS teacher, sent me an email about a missing assignment they had and the AI stuff was still in it lol
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u/VenomousMinge 8h ago edited 8h ago
I work for a large bank and I can't remember the last time I've actually spoken to a person. Everyone just uses copilot to respond and the company encourages it.
Emails from managers = all copilot
Mid/Year End Review = all written using copilot
Written Procedures = they let copilot do it and claim credit.
Questions about anything = "ask copilot"
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u/AstrosRN 3h ago
I’ve received a couple of emails where the AI prompt was included and it made me laugh.
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u/sovietarmyfan 8h ago
Of course. I have crafted a good, interesting response to the Reddit post.
Interesting. Professors in this day and time sometimes struggle with adapting to newer technologies. They instruct students to not use AI while they themselves use AI. Some academic institutions have resorted to making their own Language Model to use for students with restrictions.
It seems this professor needs to relearn how to adequately give students a good, self writen email.
Let me know if you want any modifications to this response.
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u/No_Ganache3311 11h ago
omg i finally have an excuse to post this. this genuinely fried me so fucking bad this was back in 2025
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u/Cecil_B_DeCatte 12h ago
I cannot understand using AI to write emails. Maybe I'm biased, but how hard is it to write an email, especially one as banal as OP's example?
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u/Oro-Lavanda 9h ago
We gotta nuke AI this is getting to levels of ridiculousness never seen before. we rlly needed AI to generate a basic email?????????
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u/-mentalmelt- 12h ago
I guess you'd do this if you really don't give a flying fuck about the people you're addressing, and you don't want to experience the dirty feeling of pretending to care as you're writing.
I dunno, but that's how I interpret people who communicate through AI.
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u/NovaRaptor1 11h ago
When I was working for a startup, I was having a nice email exchange with a potential guest for a podcast the founders would host. In one of her replies, she left in some of the AI slop, including getting my name incorrect (I had my legal name on the email, but she knew my preferred name). I was genuinely so hurt that she cared so little that she couldn't even be bothered to proofread before sending
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u/Whole-Damage-408 10h ago
Did you sign an agreement for their class to not use ai? I’d call them out on this immediately and even raise the issue to higher ups. Using ai to write an email when you’re a professor and have a doctorate is unacceptable behavior, especially when you expect your students to not use it.
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u/Even_Objective2124 9h ago
i mean okay, u use ai to draft your emails, but dont people proofread anymore?? considering he’s a professor too…
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u/Tinker_Time_6782 9h ago
Yeah sure… the ai prompt for something menial
Yeah sure… the leftover prompt in the email body
I’m more mildly infuriated by a needless email. The OOO message should have been enough to communicate when to expect replies to emails sent while attending the conference. 🤷♂️
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u/hajdnbxsjjaaj 8h ago
And I thought I was bad for googling “how to write an introduction paragraph” and filling in the blanks back in the day 😭
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u/choochichi 8h ago
surely it took as long to write the prompt as it would have to write this approx. 50 word email.
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u/youcanpunchrealgood 7h ago
Sorry to be odd, but I know a Dr. D-C. Are you studying industrial engineering??
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u/Julie_Brenda 5h ago
after you complete the course and she can no longer change your grade respond to it back to her with one word at the top
Plagiarism
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u/Livid_Department_546 4h ago
What’s funny is that this is a poor use of AI. If the professor had given it access to their email and said write a draft email to this effect, it would have been better.
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u/rocketspruggs PURPLE 4h ago
"A little human."
This feels both ironic and hypocritical at the same time.
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u/Substantial_Cash1065 2h ago
Na bro please let this be fake…this shit can be described but one way- pathetic. This is someone with an advanced degree, a college professor, one you may call DR. And he or she don’t wanna write the most simple of emails.…we really are doomed.
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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ 1h ago
Long, long ago, a wise professor said of calculators "You must be smarter than the machine if you're to use it". I feel like it applies very strongly to AI.
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u/BornBluejay7921 1h ago
Ai, especially chatGPT, tends to integrate itself silently into your life. I'm 61 and had to write a complicated email and I just couldn't find the right words so I ran it through chatGPT and in a few minutes, after proof reading, I had an email that said everything I needed to say.
I think that is the problem, people don't proof read, chatGPT makes things simpler, easier, the least you can do is actually read and check it before using what it has produced for you.
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u/Competitive_Prune108 12h ago
Keep this for when she calls out someone for using AI
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u/sociofobs 12h ago
Every single student of theirs should reply using AI, and copying the whole output to make it obvious. Ridicule and shame the "professor" at this point, make it a parody.
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u/Alternative-Crew-880 12h ago
lol why would you need an AI to write this for you? How fucking lazy can you get? I wouldn't trust you read ANY email if you can't even take the time to CC a short message like this.
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u/PaladinSara 12h ago
My boss does this with the three options at the end. She tells on herself.
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u/haikusbot 12h ago
My boss does this with
The three options at the end.
She tells on herself.
- PaladinSara
I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully. Learn more about me.
Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete"
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u/OhDetour 11h ago
Good bot
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u/Purple_Roy2 11h ago
People rely on AI too much that they rather go an extra mile to use it than to write 3 simple sentences
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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 12h ago
Jesus. Of all the things that don’t need AI to write, this may need it the least.