Student Was Punished For Using AI—Then His Parents Sued Teacher & Administrators \ stacker news ~Politics_And

Student Was Punished For Using AI—Then His Parents Sued Teacher & Administrators arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/student-was-punished-for-using-ai-then-his-parents-sued-teacher-and-administrators/

292 sats \ 11 comments \ @0xbitcoiner 17 Oct Politics_And_Law

Parents claim there was no rule banning AI, but school cites multiple policies.

A school district in Massachusetts was sued by a student's parents after the boy was punished for using an artificial intelligence chatbot to complete an assignment. The lawsuit says the Hingham High School student handbook did not include a restriction on the use of AI.

"They told us our son cheated on a paper, which is not what happened," Jennifer Harris told WCVB. "They basically punished him for a rule that doesn't exist."

Jennifer and her husband, Dale, filed the lawsuit in Plymouth County Superior Court, and the case was then moved to US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. Defendants include the superintendent, principal, a teacher, the history department head, and the Hingham School Committee.

The student is referred to by his initials, RNH. The lawsuit alleges violations of the student's civil rights, including "the Plaintiff Student's personal and property rights and liberty to acquire, possess, maintain and protect his rights to equal educational opportunity."

...read more at arstechnica.com

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74 sats \ 2 replies \ @k00b 17 Oct

There's probably some precedent with calculators and computers.

Teachers have a really hard job in this case because most writing assignments attempt to exercise thinking, but if AI can write then students will avoid exercising their thinking.

If I were a teacher, I'd probably stop grading long form writing assignments and instead give in-person tests with essay prompts. The tests would have the student draw on work/thinking that should've been done in writing assignments - easy if they did the writing assignments themselves and impossible if they didn't.

179 sats \ 1 reply \ @SimpleStacker 17 Oct

I used to give coding exams will full internet access. In general, the students who used AI were easy to tell and they usually got the wrong answers because the AI couldn't take the task and accomplish it from start to finish with no errors.

Last semester, I had 9 students submit almost the exact same script, using methods I had not taught but accomplished the task accurately. When I confronted them, they all denied copying each other, but some admitted to using ChatGPT and one even showed me the prompts he used to get the answer.

I realized that either ChatGPT got better at converting tasks to code, or students got better at prompting the AI.

Either way, I stopped giving coding exams on computer and went back to paper tests where they'd have to write their code out by hand (for fairly simple tasks).

197 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 17 Oct

Some professors require students to install special software in their computers to prevent cheating during computer based tests.

On principle, I'm against forcing anyone to install anything on their devices. Especially anti-cheating software that borders the line of malware. Even for my coding assignments, I show them free cloud based options.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @4rge 17 Oct

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @7e6e393a56 17 Oct

It may not be illegal, but it is amoral

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 17 Oct

At my university, we are advised now to include a clear AI policy in our syllabus.

Mine says that if you look like AI, and an AI detector says it's likely AI, i'll dock you points or make you re-do it, even if you didn't actually use AI. And if you're worried about it, you can run your work through an AI detector first

I think this is fair, since looking like AI is already a weakness in this day and age.

But then, I got accused of using AI on Stacker.News: #715713

That didn't feel good, so now I'm conflicted about my own policy, haha

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner OP 17 Oct

... even if you didn't actually use AI.

It seems unfair to me! There have to be better methods. For example, taking an oral exam.

11 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 17 Oct

As I said, I'm conflicted about my own policy.

Part of it is necessary time saving measures for myself. I do my best in teaching, but I also have limited time. I don't really have the time to investigate whether someone actually used AI or not, and I don't have time to give oral exams either. When I ran it by other profs, they actually thought it made sense and was fair, as long as I'm upfront about it at the start.