Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsKatherine Rundell’s phrase “greasy little voice” captures her concern that AI can sound fluent while concealing two kinds of missing work: the creative labor behind its training material and the thinking a student bypasses when a tool supplies the answer. In her August 2026 Guardian opinion essay, Rundell argues that schools should protect reading, writing and intellectual struggle. Her essay is an argument, not a study or a court ruling; its claims about education and copyright need to be read in that light.
What Rundell means by AI’s “greasy little voice”
Rundell writes fiction for children and says she holds a fellowship at Oxford University. Her essay, “I hate what AI is doing to the minds and happiness of the young,” is a warning about what may be lost when fluent AI output is treated as a substitute for learning and human creativity. She is not comparing particular AI products or reporting a controlled evaluation of them.
![Claude AI for Beginners Bible: [5 in 1] The Ultimate Guide to Automate Your Work, Save Hours Every Week, and Use AI for Real-World Results](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/415+fSJacsL._SL160_.jpg)
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
Her concern is not simply that a chatbot can produce a finished assignment. It is that polished language can make an answer look like evidence of understanding even when the student has not done the reading, formed an argument or worked through uncertainty. She also objects to the use of creative works to train language models without what she considers fair permission, recognition or compensation.
Why she says the learning process matters
Rundell’s example is an essay on Macbeth. “A student’s essay on Macbeth has no value as a product,” she writes. Her point is that the submitted essay is not the whole purpose of the exercise: reading, interpreting, drafting and revising are part of how a student develops knowledge and judgment. If AI supplies the fluent result, a teacher may see a polished page without seeing the intellectual work the assignment was meant to elicit.
This is an argument about educational purpose, not proof that any use of AI prevents learning. A useful way to assess a classroom policy is to ask whether it preserves the work students are meant to practise and gives teachers ways to see what students understand beyond the final wording.
- Learning process: Does the task require students to read, reason, draft, revise and explain their thinking?
- Evidence of understanding: Can a teacher distinguish a student’s own grasp of the material from the polish of a submitted answer?
- Access and equity: Who receives human teaching and support, and who risks being offered automated systems instead? Rundell raises this as a concern, not an established outcome.
- Educational purpose: Is efficiency the main measure of success, or are discussion, imagination and intellectual development valued too?
These questions are an interpretive framework drawn from Rundell’s argument, not a tested scoring system for schools or AI tools.
What the essay’s study references do—and do not—show
Rundell refers to a problem-solving experiment in which, she says, people who lost access to AI after ten minutes of AI-assisted work performed worse and gave up more often than people who had never used it. She also describes an MIT study as finding lower brain activity and weaker performance among ChatGPT-using test groups. The Guardian essay supplies no authors, paper titles, publication dates, methods, sample details or links for either reference. Those descriptions should therefore be treated as claims Rundell reports, not as independently traceable, general findings about AI and learning.
Free tools Windows power users keep installed
One-click scans. No signup required.
She also says annual electricity demand from AI-optimised data centres is predicted to exceed Japan’s before the end of the decade, but does not identify the forecast or its source in the essay. The claim cannot be tied there to a named forecast or precise set of assumptions.
What “stolen labour” means—and what the law has decided
Rundell writes: “I hate that much of AI’s LLMs were built on an illegal pillage of human labour.” That is her characterization of how creative work was used; it is not a general legal finding. Whether particular training practices infringe copyright, qualify as fair use or create liability depends on the jurisdiction and facts at issue.
The Authors Guild reported on September 5, 2026 that plaintiffs in a U.S. case against OpenAI and Microsoft had filed a September 4 motion seeking summary judgment on claims involving allegedly pirated books, copying for training and transfers between the companies. The Guild’s account describes the plaintiffs’ allegations and procedural filings; it is not a court ruling. The defendants had filed their own motions, and the Guild noted that disputed facts could send the case to trial.
A 2025 Harvard Law Review overview likewise described questions about fair use in training, AI authorship and liability for infringing outputs as unresolved. Neither a pending U.S. case nor a legal overview establishes a universal answer for every model, work or country.
Some writers have made the labor objection collectively. In an open letter published by Literary Hub, signatories argue that AI systems draw on creative work without consent, payment or acknowledgment, and urge publishers to protect human publishing labor. Their statement is advocacy by the letter’s signatories, not an independent legal determination.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What response Rundell argues for
Rundell does not present a simple fix. She rejects spoken vivas and weekly exams as the sole answer for humanities courses and says, “I do not know what the answer is, but I do know that it’s not to give up.” Her proposed emphasis is on defending reading, knowledge and imagination rather than treating faster production as the purpose of education.
She writes, “AI, we’re told, will make learning more efficient. But is that what we dream of for our kids – an efficient childhood?” For schools, that question points to a practical tension: decide where AI assistance may be useful without letting the tool replace the reading and reasoning an assignment is intended to develop, or the human teaching that helps students develop them.
Her closing appeal is to make reading compelling in its own right: “We must find ways to show children that reading gives you access to an inexhaustible source of delight.”
Recommended Free Tools
Further reading
The Guardian essay identifies Rundell’s Impossible Creatures: The Neverfear as her latest children’s book at the time of publication and says Bloomsbury expected to publish it on August 27, 2026. It is a children’s book, not a guide to AI.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
