Comment by bsenftner
Well duh. Writing is thinking ordered, and thinking in your mind is not ordered unless one has specific training that organizes and orders their thinking - and even then it requires effort to maintain an organized perception. That is why we write: writing is our thoughts organized and frozen in an order that will be remain in order when related, without writing as the communications foundation the ideas/concepts would drift. Using an LLM to write is using an LLM to think for you and unless you then double your work by validating what was written, you are just adding work that regulates your mind to a janitor cleaning up after the LLM.
It is absolutely possible to use LLMs when writing essays, but do not use them to write! Use them to critique what you yourself with your own mind wrote!
Validating what is written is just confirming facts, and figures and making sure it is logical. It is not the same as synthesizing the original data, in terms of your level of understanding. If you need something to submit, an AI essay will do. But if you want to understand something, you really need to write it yourself.