Jody Serrano
Editor in chiefEditor in Chief at Xataka On. Before joining Webedia, I was a tech reporter at Gizmodo and The Messenger. While I've covered all sorts of things related to technology, I'm specialized in writing about social media, Internet culture, Twitch, and streamers.
Ever since the advent of ChatGPT, university students across the country have received a consistent message: Don’t use it to do your work. However, it appears that the warning didn’t apply to professors, some of whom have begun using ChatGPT as “automated teaching assistants” to generate presentations, give feedback, and grade assignments.
Students are not amused.
An accidental copy and paste. The use of ChatGPT and other AI tools by university professors was recently highlighted in a report by The New York Times. It began with something that’s happened to all of us: an accidental copy and paste.
That’s what Ella Stapleton, a recent graduate of Northeastern University, noticed earlier this year when she reviewed lecture notes on models of leadership for her class on organizational behavior. As explained by the outlet, Stapleton spotted a command to ChatGPT in the notes that asked it to “expand on all areas. Be more detailed and specific.”
After further analyzing the lecture notes, Stapleton found other examples of AI use, including distorted text, photos of people with extra limbs, and weird misspellings.
Is it hypocrisy? Stapleton wasn’t happy to find ChatGPT’s digital fingerprints in her class materials. She proceeded to file a complaint with the university’s business school because her professor hadn’t told students that he was using AI, among other issues.
“He’s telling us not to use it, and then he’s using it himself,” Stapleton said.
Rick Arrowood, Stapleton’s professor, lamented the incident. He’s been teaching for 20 years and told the outlet that he uploaded his teaching materials to ChatGPT and asked the chatbot to “give them a fresh look.” Arrowood said he should have looked at the output more closely.
As part of her complaint, Stapleton requested a tuition reimbursement for the class, which amounted to $8,000 for the semester. University officials informed her that her request for a refund had been rejected in May.
Feedback from ChatGPT. According to the Times report, professors aren’t only using ChatGPT to create teaching materials. They’re also using it to grade assignments or create lesson plans, tasks that sometimes require considerable amounts of time.
Another student named Marie, whose full name was not provided, recalled an experience with an online class at Southern New Hampshire University that also included an accidental copy and paste. When reviewing the comments left by her professor on a three-page essay, Marie saw that the professor had accidentally included the grading rubric used by ChatGPT and asked the chatbot to include some “really nice feedback” for her.
“From my perspective, the professor didn’t even read anything that I wrote,” Marie said.
After speaking to her professor about the incident, the professor said that they had read her paper but used ChatGPT as a guide, adding that this is allowed by the university.
No census on how to use AI. There is no national consensus on how to use AI in the classroom and uses will vary by professor and institution.
In interviews with other professors, the Times found that some approved of using ChatGPT to grade assignments, while others disapproved. In response to the Times article, Carla Martinez Machain, a professor at the University of Buffalo, pointed out that she didn’t use ChatGPT to grade.
“This makes me feel better about my sometimes illegible handwritten comments on student work. At least I'm grading it myself!” Martinez Machain said in a post on X.
Telling students whether they used AI in the classroom wasn’t a topic of consensus, either. Some believed it was important to be transparent, while others said they didn’t reveal the use of ChatGPT because students were skeptical.
A place to vent. As for the students, they’re going public about professors that use AI in the classroom on sites like Rate My Professors and Reddit.
“I had this the last year I was at university. Confronted them about it, and they just denied it and then started accusing me of using AI because I recognised the cadence, lol. Assholes,” a user said in November.
Images | Jonathan Kemper | Solen Feyissa
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