From personal observation, I’d say that roughly 15-25% of my students this semester used AI to complete most or all of an assignment. By casually skimming, I can usually tell within the first paragraph whether or not a student has used AI (overuse of the word “delve,” for example).
Unlike traditional plagiarism, there’s no guaranteed way to detect use of AI. It often comes down to a game of poker in which I bluff my way into drawing an admission of guilt from a student. The problem is that I usually have well over 100 students across my classes. Additionally, I’m very bad at poker.
So, in most instances, I have to ignore the instinct that tells me a student has cheated (using AI to complete an assignment is cheating). Inside Higher Ed recently published their annual survey of college heads from around the country and, to me, many of these administrators sound like they’re still back in late 2022. I don’t think they realize the ubiquity of generative AI use among students.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy generative AI. I’ve been using Suno to create songs from poems I’ve written (deep down, I’ve always just wanted to be in a punk band). I’ve used ChatGPT in my non-profit work to create a memorandum of understanding, among other things.
But our students, especially community college students, will be vulnerable to the temptation of the easy way out. Many of them have full-time jobs, families, and face major economic and social barriers. We’ve built our society in such a way that many of our students are faced with choosing between burnout or dropout. We admire them for going back to school but seem baffled when they can’t hold up under the immense pressure.
Am I blaming capitalism? Yes, a little bit. I’m a Marxist, after all. But I do believe that people have the right to a free, quality education and that right shouldn’t end at 18. If the ruling class truly wants their workers to seek advanced training then maybe they should stop with the wage theft and pay more in taxes. But I digress.
We can hold all the seminars, trainings, and discussions we like but the fact is that we will never catch up with generative AI. We can pay “experts” to enlighten us but while we sit and listen, our students are sinking. They’ve been sinking for a long time, and if they’re faced with working third shift and then writing an essay when they get home, I don’t blame them for choosing generative AI.
This economic system has cheated them for decades now. I don’t necessarily blame students for finally finding a way to settle the score. The problem is that it won’t serve anyone in the long run, least of all our students.
An Unhappy Consciousness 