AI Policy

Note

This is a version of the AI course policy I’m introducing this semester.

🚫 When in doubt: No.

There is no aspect of this course for which it is recommended, appropriate, or acceptable to turn to a Large Language Model (more commonly called an AI) such as ChatGPT. This includes:

• Working on graded assignments, quizzes, or discussion prompts.

• As a supplement to the readings or course notes.

• As a reading or study aid (for example, summarizing readings or course notes).

Consequences

You won’t receive credit for any submitted coursework that is obviously AI generated. I will leave feedback on coursework that was AI generated that this is the reason why it isn’t receiving a grade. If you actually didn’t generate your coursework with AI, you should ask me to revisit the grade. We should be able to resolve the issue with a straightforward conversation about the work you submitted.

I will be judicious about whether or not I flag an assignment as AI generated. If you are not using AI, you don’t need to worry about taking extra steps to make sure your coursework doesn’t “look” like AI in some way.

❓Why?

Assignments aren’t obstacles, they’re the course.

A common way to think about course assignments is like they’re obstacles that I, the professor, put in the way between you and completion of the course. But they’re not. They’re exercises that, by virtue of you doing them, you learn. If you don’t actually do them, then you’re not learning. To quote Ted Chiang:

As the linguist Emily M. Bender has noted, teachers don’t ask students to write essays because the world needs more student essays. The point of writing essays is to strengthen students’ critical-thinking skills; in the same way that lifting weights is useful no matter what sport an athlete plays, writing essays develops skills necessary for whatever job a college student will eventually get. Using ChatGPT to complete assignments is like bringing a forklift into the weight room; you will never improve your cognitive fitness that way.

The same can be said for things like summarizing the contents of a textbook chapter yourself. By creating your own study guide, or condensing the contents of a chapter into a few bullet points yourself, you have already studied. The valuable thing about course notes isn’t the actual notes, it’s the act of making them. By offloading the act of making them to an AI, they lose their value.

As a learner, you don’t have enough context

When you start a new chat with ChatGPT, it says at the bottom of the screen “ChatGPT can make mistakes. Check important info.” Even if you take that seriously, how would you know if an AI summarized readings or course notes incorrectly? You’re a learner in this course because you don’t already know its content. AI systems may be useful to some users who have enough context to be able to tell when they’ve gone astray, but you are definitionally not in that position.

Learning is still a fundamental purpose of higher education

There are lots of different reasons to go to college, and I won’t judge any as being more or less valid than another. But in my role as an educator in this course, the purpose I am meant to tend to is your learning. I want to facilitate your learning, and in my judgment, for this course, that means prohibiting the use of AI tools.