May 16, 2011 - Since generative artificial intelligence technology has exploded in popularity, many college and university faculty members have worried about students cheating with the help of the technology. However, there has also been growing student dissatisfaction with professors' use of AI tools recently.
Northeastern University, USAElla Stapleton, a graduate of this year's class, was in the process of discovering that her professors utilized the ChatGPT After assisting in the production of the handout, he was shocked and then filed a formal complaint with the school and demanded a full refund of the tuition for the course.
Stapleton was browsing through business professor Rick Arrowood's lecture notes when she noticed the telltale signs of AI generation: the sudden appearance of the word "ChatGPT" in the references, recurring spelling errors that resembled machine output, and an unusual number of limbs in the accompanying illustrations -- clues that made her suspicious! -- These clues made her suspicious.
Stapleton said in an interview, "He told us not to use AI, but he was using it himself."
In response, Stapleton filed a formal complaint with the College of Business, not only questioning Professor Arrowood's failure to disclose the use of AI, but also expressing her dissatisfaction with his overall teaching style and requesting a refund of more than $8,000 in tuition for the course. After several rounds of meetings, Northeastern ultimately denied her request for a refund.
Prof. Arrowood admits that he did use a variety of AI tools, including ChatGPT, the Perplexity AI search engine, and the PPT-generation platform Gamma, and admits, "In hindsight, I really should have scrutinized the content more closely." He adds that teachers should be cautious and transparent with their students when using AI: "If my experience can shed some light on others, that's not a bad thing."
Renata Nyul, Vice President for Communications at Northeastern University, said, "Northeastern supports the use of AI to optimize all aspects of teaching, research, and operations. The university provides a wealth of resources to support the appropriate use of AI and continues to update and implement policies across the university."
In fact, many colleges and universities either explicitly prohibit or severely limit the use of AI. Since the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, the student body has quickly become an early adopter, quickly discovering that they can complete papers and assignments in seconds. The widespread use of the technology has led to a crisis of confidence between students and faculty, as instructors struggle to both recognize and penalize the use of AI in assignments.
Now the situation has reversed. Students have begun to complain about the use or overuse of AI by teachers through sites like Rate My Professors, arguing that it devalues the human expert teaching they should be getting for the high tuition fees they pay - after all, the technology in question would have been free to use.
According to Northeastern's AI policy, any faculty, staff, or student using an AI system to generate content for inclusion in a scholarly publication or for submission to any person, publication, or organization that requires attribution of authorship of the content is required to provide appropriate attribution. The policy also states that users must "regularly check the accuracy and suitability of the output of the AI system for its intended use and revise and update it as appropriate".