黄色电影

As a college professor, I face many challenges, tasks, issues, and dilemmas every semester, including preparing lectures, trying to get shy students to participate in class, competing with students using cell phones and laptops in class, detecting plagiarism, how to deal with students who are regularly absent or late, and grading endless numbers of papers, articles, and essays from an average of 60 students per semester.

During the last academic year, however, I discovered a new trend and dilemma – how to handle students who I suspect are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to write their assignments for them. 

A student turned in a paper that was so sophisticated and professional in its writing that it made me wonder whether the student had written the paper. I googled some of the phrases in the paper to see if they were plagiarized but didn't find anything. I then Googled AI detection websites and ran the student's paper through two of the websites. Both websites concluded that it was likely that the student's paper was generated by AI. The student denied the allegation, and I gave them another chance to write the paper, which they did. This incident set off a light bulb in my head to realize that there were many other students in my classes using fancy SAT words in their writing assignments that they normally wouldn't use and that they might be using AI to write their papers. I came to realize that it turns out that it's a common thing for high school and college students to be using AI technology to write their papers. In fact, it's likely that a majority of them are doing this.

Chat GPT was released in November 2022. In a little over a year, it has become a go-to tool for many high school and college students to do their homework and write their papers.

A May 2024 article in  reported that, according to Turnitin's AI detection tool, which reviewed over 200 million papers, over 50 percent of students use AI technology to write their papers. Last year, it was reported that a attempted to give a group of his students an incomplete grade for the course for allegedly using Chat GPT for their assignments. A November 2023 article in reported that its survey of 1,000 college students revealed that 56 percent of the students surveyed used AI in assignments or exams.  

There is a split among college professors as to whether student use of AI to write papers and assignments is appropriate. Some college professors choose to allow students to use AI in assignments, while other professors have policies specifically banning AI use for assignments. Some college professors have a philosophy that while they don't want students to use AI in assignments, they won't have specific policies preventing it. Others believe that schools should be teaching students how to use AI technology and allowing such use because AI is the future, and some are requiring that students use AI in their assignments. Right now, AI use in college classrooms is like the Wild West.

To me, using AI to write articles, essays, and research papers gives those students an unfair advantage over students who aren't using AI to write their papers. It also puts pressure on students to use AI in order to keep up with the others in the class.

I've struggled to come up with a sufficient AI policy for my classes this semester. After consulting with other professors and attending seminars on using AI in teaching, I decided that I would prohibit the use of AI for writing assignments. I told my students that if I catch them using AI through various AI detection websites they will get an F for the paper but that I'll give them a chance to rewrite the paper. 

Colleges should have more training for professors on how to use AI in classrooms and provide suggested or optional AI policies that professors can choose to use in grading student papers. Among the issues that should be addressed are whether AI detection websites are reliable and whether students can tweak their AI-generated Op-Eds, essays, and articles so that AI detection websites won't catch them. Are some AI detection tools better than others? Will excellent students dumb down their essays and assignments so that they aren't suspected of using AI to do assignments? Colleges should give a range of examples of AI policies that professors could choose to use. The more educated professors are about AI technology, the better they will be able to formulate AI policies. A few months ago, Arcadia University, one of the schools that I teach at, held some workshops and lectures on AI use in the classroom, and I found it helpful.

I know that I'm old school, but I believe that by using AI to write their papers, students are not learning skills they'll need in the real world, especially in Journalism and other writing-related professions.

In a few years, none of this may matter to me and other college professors, since we might be replaced by AI robot professors that will teach college classes. In the meantime, we need to figure this AI thing out.