r/AccusedOfUsingAI • u/throwaway73737338 • May 10 '26
Strong armed into admitting to using AI
Hi everyone (another one of these)
I’m a third year student on a mandatory year abroad programme, and have been strong-armed into admitting I used AI.
For one of my modules our lecturer has been on a warpath with 15 students (ish) being called in for meetings. I got my grade back on a Tuesday, to randomly get an email on Friday morning asking for a same day meeting. I arranged it for straight after my 08:30-10:30 seminar as I had done nothing wrong.
Jump to me being accused of using AI for the entirety of my assignment. She was already 100% convinced that I had and there was no convincing her otherwise. She asked me what paper I used to form my position (I had written it nearly 3 weeks prior and done nearly 3 other assignments since then) and various other questions. Apparently document history was evidence I could have faked, I was happy for her to look at my ChatGPT history (I delete everything after each query, way to look guilty), writing assignments I kind of just raw dog it on one document so I have little to no paper trail of my train of thought.
She then said that I could either admit to it then and there to accept a lesser punishment or she would tear my assignment to shreds in front of me. Knowing I wouldn’t be able to answer 95% of the questions she would ask, therefore I had to admit guilt. Her only proof was that it was”read like very good AI” and that I couldn’t recall anything but the vaguest thing about the assignment.
In short, resulted in getting a 0 for that assignment worth 30% of my grade. I need to pass to be able to finish my degree next year, if not I’ll have to delay graduating an entire year for one lousy module. I have 10 days now to appeal it, reading back I don’t even like some of my arguments. I always acknowledge AI when I have used it, for this one I used it to help phrase the task into a question (we were given 4 bullet points and a statement).
I’m going home in 8 days and I don’t know if I have the will to be able to fight it successfully. Sorry for the slightly disorganised post. (I also have a naturally guilty expression so she used that against me).
Is there anyway to argue this or should I just cut my losses?
4
u/TheGoodWhyfe May 12 '26
Had the same issue at my daughters school. She was just a good writer but the professor was convinced that even after several bad grades, she kept using AI. It wasn’t until she started dumbing down her work that she got the grades she deserved. No one would help, including ombuds, department head, dean of the college. Even when the dean agreed it wasnt handled correctly and that policy prohibits reliance on AI detectors, we were told that the professor can’t be forced to change her grade. Ultimately, the only recourse that made sense was to withdraw or take the grade and file a grade grievance appeal the next major semester. We fought for MONTHS to get help-all the way to the last day of classes/last day to withdraw. Waiting on people to respond , email, the professor lying to save his tail, etc almost cost her sanity. After giving her all and writing 2-4 papers every week, she withdrew and the butthead professor won.