With the growth of artificial intelligence, more students are incorporating AI into their schoolwork. While some utilize it as a tool, others use AI as a fastpass on learning. Thus, many teachers have been on high alert, running student assignments through AI checkers to ensure their voices remain heard in their original and authentic work.
Uncertainty rooted in plagiarism has caused an increased number of students falsely accused of using AI in their work. Senior Gicel Cardenas shared experiencing being accidentally accused of plagiarism and AI usage.
“I had just finished my essay, and I’m pretty sure we’re around the corner of our first semester,” Cardenas said. “She came up to me one day and (said), ‘Hey, I’ve seen that you have a certain percentage of AI, and I did see that someone has the same work as you. So what’s going on here?’”
Although Cardenas was able to prove that her work was authentic, she felt disturbed by the possible consequences that would have emerged from the accusations.
“If there’s a sudden change of vocab, if it’s way too fancy and everything, I’d understand it. But then again, I’ve always written the same way. I just write in my own perspective” Cardenas said. “I feel like you could tell that it’s really me doing my assignments.”
Like Cardenas, junior Lucas Hall expressed his feelings about a similar accusation and conflict he faced.
“I felt fairly angry for getting falsely accused and did not feel good even though it was fairly inconsequential,” Hall said. “I was able to talk to the teacher, and, apparently, several other people had had similar problems, so there weren’t any consequences for it.”
Though Hall managed to leave unscathed, other falsely accused students have not been so lucky. Senior Laasya Pandravada emphasized how the consequences of plagiarism accusations can be dire and have a significant effect on students’ grades.
“I think it impacted it (their grade) a lot because, especially if it’s a major assignment . . . their grade definitely drops from As to Bs, or Bs to Cs, at least a whole letter grade,” Pandravada said.
When it comes to AI-related conflicts, many teachers are held in a difficult position. English teacher Aron Conger shared his feelings and perspective about how he handles such situations.
“I never want to accuse a kid falsely of misconduct, but I can only use what I can use,” Conger said. “That’s why I kind of feel that offering a student an opportunity to defend their paper orally is kind of a fair way of addressing it because there could be false positives, there could also be cheating, so gotta see it both ways.”
As teachers and students take precautions to reduce suspicions and false accusations, both explore solutions to minimize incidents. Students such as Cardenas reflected on the importance of teachers being able to recognize their students’ voices – a possible solution to minimizing false accusations.
“I’ve always done my work. I’ve never copied off of anyone,” Cardenas said. “I feel like, as a teacher, they should know already how their students write.”
Hall believes that using multiple AI checkers is another solution for how to minimize false accusations, due to the varying accuracy of different detectors.
“(The) best (solution) I’ve heard of is just using more than one AI checker, and if it only gets flagged on one out of four, for example, chances are that it was just a false positive,” Hall said. “Whereas if it comes up on three or four of them, then you need to look into it further.”
At the end of the day, face-to-face conversations with students to clarify any misunderstandings can be effective, especially in conflicts that are uncertain.
“Mandating that you don’t just use the word of one AI checker and actually talking to the student about the assignment and making sure they understand it and didn’t just copy something, you can reduce the chance of false positives and accusations,” Hall said.