Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown University: 'Academic integrity is at risk'

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25. It's not necessarily a matter of politics.

Or if it is, it doesn't necessarily have to do with the president.

Many universities are being approached by tech companies to use their AI services as an adjunct to other modes of education. These can be expensive, so universities are offered discounted "educational" rates, and administrators are being told it's the way of the future. There is thus a disconnect between some (not all) in the administration and most (though sadly not all) faculty when it comes to this sort of thing. Faculty are being encouraged to use AI, or to let students use it, in spite of the clear evidence that (a) AI is unreliable and (b) even when it's reliable, it's harmful to the educational process.

A survey was sent to us a couple of weeks ago asking how we integrate AI in our classes. My answer was very brief - I forbid its use.

The same thing happened when instructional technology first became a thing in the 1990's. I was happy to use PowerPoint for pictures because it meant I wouldn't have to sort through slides and put them away, but otherwise, I saw little use in some of the multimedia packages we were encouraged to use. All I could see was that students stopped taking notes the minute some sort of digital resource was made available. DIdn't have to be online, either - it could have been a CD-ROM that came with a textbook.

I haven't really been hit with pressure to use AI at my own institution, but I have colleagues elsewhere who have. It's about money, yes, but not necessarily about national politics.