If you thought Spell Check was something to worry about, wait until you see what Google's Smart Compose has is store for writing. Not only will we no longer need to be able to spell, we won't even need to be able to complete a sentence. Google's Artificial intelligence (AI) will do the leg work, well finger work, for you.
As a former Social Studies teacher, my initial reaction is one of concern in regards to how this will impact the quality of students writing. I do wonder though if we are really there yet. This really seems to be to be a web based version of what we have had for a while on mobile devices. That being said, John Oliver compared the effectiveness of Donald Trump's effective use of language vs predictive text and I think the AI technology won.
Now the Donald should not be a frame of reference for anything serious, but I do think we do overestimate the quality of our own writing and the necessity of it. What is definitely worthy of consideration is the quality, depth, and breadth of thought, intellectual discourse, and analysis. In an era of click-bait media and "Fake News", the ability to critically evaluate sources of information is prime and Google's News Initiative is working to help us with that as well.
While I do raise an eyebrow to Google's Smart Compose, I don't think it will make us or our student sound any smarter just yet. If you are a bad writer and lack creative thought, you'll probably be just a bit more efficient and sounding not so smart, regardless of Artificial Intelligence.