Sam Altman invited one of America’s most prolific living authors to speak to his team. What he got was a dressing-down.
Dave Eggers, the novelist, journalist, publisher of McSweeney’s, and founder of multiple education nonprofits, stood before roughly 200 OpenAI staffers and told them their flagship product is wreaking havoc on schools. According to the Financial Times, Eggers said the effect of ChatGPT on educators’ lives is “catastrophic,” arguing the tool has made every teacher’s job effectively impossible when it comes to evaluating original student work.
The case against outsourcing your voice
Eggers didn’t limit his critique to a single talk in OpenAI’s offices. In a June 2026 appearance on NPR, he expanded on the theme, warning young people against the temptation to let AI “speak for me.” He framed the widespread adoption of generative text tools as a form of “dystopian” self-silencing, where an entire generation voluntarily surrenders the very thing that makes their expression human: the struggle to find their own words.
OpenAI did not provide any comment or clarification regarding the event or the concerns Eggers raised.
