This is the language I put on all of my syllabi this year regarding the use of AI. At this point I don't see any reason to change it.
“Massive numbers of students are going to emerge from university with degrees, and into the workforce, who are essentially illiterate…Both in the literal sense and in the sense of being historically illiterate and having no knowledge of their own culture, much less anyone else’s.”
Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College
ChatGPT has unraveled the entire academic project.
May 7, 2025 13:40The ability to articulate one's distinctive perspective, backed up by good arguments and evidence, is not an inborn human trait...it must be cultivated by practice. Offloading the work of thinking to a machine will reduce the number of clear, critical thinkers in a polity. An authoritarian's dream.
Folks have asked if they can borrow or adapt this...100% yes.
And here's the study I hyperlinked to in that statement.
www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15...https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/15/1/6
mine is even shorter:
"The use of generative AI is forbidden. You will receive a zero, be ineligible, and your record will be examined for plagiarism starting with this occurrence. You have a brilliant mind and we are here to help you learn how to use it, not burn down the planet."
.. i'm mean.
I had a dean tell to stop reporting AI-generated student work (explicitly forbidden on my syllabus) because it’s the future and we should be encouraging students to build ai aptitude.
We are so very cooked.
I like this statement. I started 4 semesters ago with something like “cite it like you would any other source,” which turned out to be embarrassingly naive. Now I’m assessing every stage in the writing process, which greatly multiplies my work load. I’m not sure how much longer I want to do this.
If it is any comfort, my son, who will be a senior in college this year, and his peers all eschew AI, not only because they acknowledge as cheating, but also because they know it’s often wrong and lacks nuance. They won’t even use it for study purposes.
I see that we all woke up today and decided to read about the yawning void consuming our vocation.
I’ve had similar in my syllabi nearly since ChatGPT came out.
At first, I allowed rewrites but because there are still too many cheaters, the penalty is now an automatic failure of the assignment for using it. I’m not playing.
One note: end it with, "Fuck AI."
Completely unrelated but not really, the way this was written scratched nice and smoothly to my neurotic brain
People always cheated and they cheated themselves.
It's very effective but the swipe at sales emails feels out of place. It may not be literature or even academic but it is a skill being degraded by AI usage, by bypassing authentic human thought and effort.
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Great! Now how do you enforce it?
I don’t, because it’s impossible. Also, I refuse to be a cop in my classroom. If students want to waste their time and money by using AI then it harms only them.
Go Seth!! Thank you! I’m sure your policy will, I’m, generate some good class discussion. Cheers to you.
Might I make an editorial observation? In some places, your statement says A1 instead of AI. Otherwise, I think this is great. They are only hurting themselves if they fail to learn the material.
thx...I assume that was an autocorrect thing...more reason to hate AI.
I would like to adapt this language for my syllabi with your permission and acknowledgment …
May I steal this for my 10/11th graders next year? I feel like my AI statement isn't strong enough (especially my APUSH students)
📌
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NOTE: this is not a function of LLMs. This began with ubiquitous access to search engines, & an inability to recognize 'trusted' vs dishonest sources. In CA it was compounded by a legal opinion that we could not block wireless signals, & students had unfettered access to Google, etc..
Not to mention the environmental impacts of AI 😱
Except perhaps change A1 to AI.
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Retraction Watch is going to have to 10-tuple their staff.
Long before AI there were cheaters; most of them got weeded out in my particular field. I thought then: Imagine going through life knowing you cheated your way through college.
📌
Huzzah
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This is great. Can you provide a link to the study you mention?
Oops -- sorry! Just saw it above.
How’s compliance been?
No idea because it’s impossible to tell for sure. But my sense is that the vast majority of students are doing their own writing based on my experience grading student work for 20+ years.
We are becoming more like Russia every day
