In age of AI cheating, how do teachers draw the line?

A teacher tells a student not to use AI in a research assignment. But when the student does a browser search, an AI-generated explanation pops up unprompted.

- By Howard Blume and Jocelyn Gecker

Has the student just cheated? What now?

Navigating the use and misuse of artificial intelligence in school is complex and confusing especially when it comes to cheating.

"The cheating is off the charts. It's the worst I've seen in my entire career, " said Valencia High School English teacher Casey Cuny, a 23-year veteran. "Anything you send home, you have to assume is being AI'ed," he said.

In late 2022, after ChatGPT launched, many schools initially banned AI, fearing it would be used to churn out term papers, compose presentations and farm out math homework. And even though such uses have come to pass, views on how to respond have shifted dramatically.

Like many concerned educators, Cuny is not calling for an AI ban. Instead, "AI literacy" has become a buzzword of the back-to-school season, with a focus on how to leverage the potential of AI while minimizing its risks.

Ultimately, students will need to know how to use AI effectively and ethically, said Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at Stanford who is the co-lead researcher of a longterm, ongoing study of student cheating.

"Let's really look at what is the purpose of education," Pope said. "What are the skills that kids will need to know when they get out of this sort of particular environment of school."

Researchers at Stanford, led by Pope and colleague Victor Lee, have concluded that the prevalence of cheating does not appear to be greater than before AI. What's changed is the technology that underpins cheating.

In the Stanford study, which began well before the public availability of ChatGPT, students report anonymously on behaviors within the last month, including:

·Looking at someone else's answer during a test Using crib sheets

Hiding textbooks in bathroom stalls and using bathroom passes during exams

·Paying students from earlier periods to leak test questions to later test-takers.