Now that the tables have turned with professors starting to use AI chatbots like ChatGPT in class, some students are calling it hypocritical. One student at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, even demanded a tuition refund after discovering her professor was using ChatGPT to providing feedback on her work.
Earlier this year, Northeastern University student Ella Stapleton was reviewing lecture notes her business professor had made for a lesson on models of leadership, when she noticed that halfway through the document, he seemingly forgot to delete his query to ChatGPT, according to a report by the New York Times.
The apparent instruction from the professor to ChatGPT reportedly read, “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific.”
And Stapleton was beside herself, just like the professors who caught their students using artificial intelligence shortly after ChatGPT came out at the end of 2022.
After looking further into the matter, the student caught more instances of purported AI-generated content. She then filed a formal complaint with the university, demanding a tuition reimbursement for that class’s quarter, worth more than $8,000.
“He’s telling us not to use it, and then he’s using it himself,” Stapleton told the Times, citing the course syllabus, which specifically prohibited “academically dishonest activities,” such as unauthorized use of AI.
Notably, schools across the country banned the use of artificial intelligence and chatbots as the AI tools took off a few years ago. Now, the script has been flipped as students take to websites like Rate My Professors to complain about their professors using the same software.
Students are calling out their instructors with claims of “hypocrisy,” as well as suggesting that they are being ripped off financially, given that students pay high tuition prices to be taught by human educators — not AI, which they, too, can converse with for free.
But more and more professors have started using AI, the New York Times reported, citing a national poll last year in which 18 percent of educators admitted to using AI frequently, noting that the same survey conducted this year revealed that percentage has nearly doubled.
The newspaper interviewed other students — who concurred with Stapleton’s assessment — as well as professors, who argued that AI makes them better at their jobs, claiming the tools save them time, helped them with overwhelming workloads, and served as automated teaching assistants.
Paul Shovlin, an English professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, told Times that he is actually an advocate of including AI in teaching, not just to make his own job easier, but because he believes students need to learn how to use the tools responsibly, as they will likely come across the technology later, in the workplace.
As for Stapleton — who graduated from Northeastern earlier this month — university administrators told the student that she will not be getting a refund following a series of meetings with officials at the business school.
Northeastern University, meanwhile, issued a formal AI policy requiring attribution when the technology is used.
A university spokesperson told the Times the school “embraces the use of artificial intelligence to enhance all aspects of its teaching, research, and operations.”
Rick Arrowood, Stapleton’s professor — who has been teaching for nearly two decades — told the newspaper that he uploaded his class documents to ChatGPT, as well as the AI search engine Perplexity, and the AI presentation generator Gamma to “give them a fresh look.”
“I’m all about teaching,” Arrowood said. “If my experience can be something people can learn from, then, okay, that’s my happy spot.”
Alana Mastrangelo is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Facebook and X at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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