Photo credit: Shutterstock.com / Roman Samborskyi
School is back in session, and with it arrives ever-evolving technology. As artificial intelligence’s popularity continues to increase, it has become another tool students can use to help with their papers. One of the more notable callouts on someone using AI to write something was NBA star Ja Morant apologizing for flashing a weapon on Instagram Live.
WATCH: Shannon Sharpe calls out Ja Morant for using ChatGPT to write his apology
Fans are starting to believe Morant used A.I. to make his apology #BigMemphis #NBA #NBATwitter #JaMorant pic.twitter.com/AVp7S2tQsG
— Court Side Heat (@courtsideheat) May 17, 2023
The technology doesn’t have to be used to flat-out write a student’s entire essay, but just paper segments. For example, if a student had a prompt about racism in America, and was looking for examples of harmful stereotypes that have derailed certain groups in the country, they could use an AI app to generate the necessary examples with the paragraphs already typed out.
In the real world after school, the use of AI is encouraged. Many employees are against the technology but engage with it, fearing losing their jobs to robots. But what about school? Will a student be punished for using today’s available tools to assist or enhance their work?
It appears as if the schools themselves aren’t sure as of Sept. 5.
“The University supports responsible experimentation with generative A.I. tools, but there are important considerations to keep in mind when using these tools, including information security and data privacy, compliance, copyright, and academic integrity,” Harvard University released in a statement. The Ivy League school advised students to review all AI-generated work to ensure it doesn’t include inaccurate, misleading, fabricated, or copyrighted material. AI content won’t be accepted by most professors.
Microsoft recommends students use AI to do the heavy lifting of the research in essays instead of actually writing the papers.
“While using AI-generated essays can be tempting, taking the easy way out doesn’t help you grow — and it puts you at risk of getting an ‘F’ for plagiarism,” the company wrote in a statement. “However, AI writing tools offer a great way to start your research — so use that to your advantage rather than having the software do the work for you.”
ChatGPT wasn’t popular in prior school years, but online resources like Wikipedia gained traction. On their websites, most institutions clarified that students found guilty of plagiarism would be given an “F” on the assignment. This policy will likely remain in place when students are suspected of relying on AI tools to complete papers this year.
