Artificial intelligence can help or hinder students' learning. Graphic by Richard Paseman

New AI policy aims to stop cheating

September 20, 2023October 13, 2023 Hakuto Kremer

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative Pre-training Transformers (GPT) have been on the rise since an early demo of ChatGPT was released on Nov. 30, 2022. CVUSD has decided on a new Artificial Intelligence/GPT Tools Code of Conduct limiting the use of AI/GPT that students can use in their education. Not following the code of conduct may result in disciplinary action for students.

Here are some of the rules listed by CVUSD on the Code of Conduct of the usage of Artificial Intelligence and/or GPT Tools:

Submitting work generated by AI and/or GPT tools as original work is considered a violation of academic integrity and may result in disciplinary action. This includes, but is not limited to using AI and/or GPT paraphrasing or summarizing tools.
With express permission from a specific teacher in their respective class(es), students may, on occasion, be permitted to use AI and/or GPT tools for research, experimentation, and learning purposes, but must clearly distinguish between their own work and any work generated by the tool.

Any use of AI and/or GPT tools must be acknowledged in the work and cited appropriately.
The use of AI and/or GPT tools is not a substitute for critical thinking, analysis, and originality, which are expected in all academic work.

“I think that there are a lot of concerns [about AI]. My experience with AI so far is that students are still way smarter than AI and students don’t know that,” said English teacher Tina Johansson. “Students will try to use it and get in trouble, not for cheating, [but] for turning in subpar work.”

Some students think that AI should be embraced instead of rejected.

“I think the school should incorporate AI into the learning curriculum because it’s becoming a big part of reality,” said junior Kenny Phouvanh.

Last year, however, Johansson and her class used ChatGPT and found that it was not able to write an essay with evidence from the source. After pushing for ChatGPT to write an essay with evidence, the students found that the evidence was made up.

“A challenge as an English teacher is, how do I make assignments that students won’t automatically go to AI,” said Johansson.

“We have students write a lot, and if we can’t trust that they’ve written the things that they turned in because they are AI-produced, it can be a big problem for academic dishonesty,” commented former CVHS journalism student and current English teacher Nisha Lal. “From a teacher perspective, because we want students to learn in school and turn things in by AI, students aren’t doing the thinking or growth that they should.”
“AI can be used as a learning tool, but can also be used as a search engine like Google,” said junior Alex Chen. “The new AI policy discourages the people from using ChatGPT and encourages them to actually learn.”