b'Anki:theNow, I dont know about you, but Ive alwaysthe important facts will stickAnki ensures thought that learning should be a little lessthat they do. Its brutal, unforgiving, and terrible. Weve all been through ithoursutterly brilliant.spent staring at a textbook, desperatelyWant to learn a language? Anki will tyrannicalwilling our brains to absorb information likedrill vocabulary into your brain with the a sponge, only to discover, mere days later,persistence of an overly enthusiastic PE that its all vanished. The human memory, it teacher. Need to memorise medical terms? flashcardseems, is about as reliable as a politiciansAnki will ensure you dont accidentally promise. prescribe cough syrup when someone needs overlord thatBut fear not! Some clever peopleprobablysurgery. Whatever you want to remember, with alarmingly neat handwritinghaveAnki will force it into your headwhether you developed a solution. Its called Anki, andlike it or not.will makeits essentially a robotic personal trainer forTHE BEST (AND WORST) LEARNING your brain. It takes one look at your shoddyEXPERIENCE YOULL EVER HAVEability to recall facts and ruthlessly whips it you smarter into shape with something called spacedNow, lets be clear. Using Anki isnt fun. repetition. Its not one of those airy-fairy gamified learning apps where you earn little badges SPACED REPETITION: and feel good about yourself for getting a THE SADISTIC GENIUS OF ANKI single answer right. No. Anki is relentless. It The concept is this: if you want to rememberdoes not care about your feelings. It does something, test yourself on it just beforenot let you off the hook. If you ignore it, your youre about to forget it. Do this repeatedly,cards will pile up like a mountain of overdue over increasing intervals of time, and library books, staring at you with cold, silent miraculouslythe information actually sticks. judgment.This is where Anki comes in, like a terrifyinglyBut heres the thing: it works. Painfully, efficient memory overlord. It tracks whatbrilliantly, and undeniably, it works. You you struggle with and decides, with eeriewill learn more in less time than you ever accuracy, when to see it again. The result?thought possible. You will remember things You learn more, you learn faster, and bestpermanently. And you will, slowly but surely, of all, you dont have to engage in the tragicbecome an unstoppable force of knowledge.ritual of re-reading your notes in sheer panicSo, if youre the sort of person who enjoys the night before an exam. efficiency, hates forgetting things, and You now have power over doesnt mind being bossed around by an your own brain (sort of) app, then congratulationsAnki is your new But heres where it gets almost dystopian.best friend. Or your new worst enemy. Either With Anki, you have more control over whatway, its going to make you smarter, whether goes into your long-term memory than everyou like it or not.before. You no longer have to just hope thatMr AlexanderTo AI or Not AIWhen we hear the phrase IT, our thoughtsThe sun, a often automatically go to another IT-relateddrowsy giant initialism: AI. Many dont believe that thestirring in the creativity and originality of language andcosmic cradle, literature should dare to tread anywherestretched near its software-generated powers, butgolden limbs others beg to differ. across the Lets take creative writing. Which one ofhorizon. Its breath, these three images describing the sun isa warm, shimmering written by a student, and which two arehaze, chased away generated by AI? the nocturnal chill, 1. A molten coin flipped high, the sun spunrevealing a world newly minted in light.as syntax and lexical choices.gold across the mornings velvet drape. Molten rivers of radiance flowed from itsThe truth is that Googles AI model Gemini core, spilling over the landscape, ignitingwrote all of the sentences and paragraphs 2. The sun, a celestial forge, hammereddewdrops into miniature suns. The airabove.light into shimmering blades that slicedhummed with its energy, a silent symphony through the lingering shadows. of warmth and power, as it began its dailySo I asked Gemini, How could someone 3. A silent, blossoming inferno, the sunascent, a promise of vibrant life etched intell that the paragraph was written by AI?unfurled its petals of fire, painting the skyevery sunbeam. And heres what Gemini said: .with molten hues. Forensic linguists (those who solve crimesIts becoming clear, then, that, whilst AI can 1 and 3 seem pretty similar - almostby analysing language) would knowundoubtedly be a powerful tool in many predictable. 2 seems to demonstratestraight away, and this is a field in which AIareas, it can lack the human touchand more linguistic originality. So far, sodevelopments could actually meaningfullythats part of the joy of the study and straightforward. blend English and the law. Thesecreativity of reading and writing, in English professionals would recognise the sameor any language.Now: did the student or AI write thislinguistic fingerprint in pieces of writing by paragraph on the same topic? the same person, considering aspects suchMrs Atkinson6'