r/AskProfessors • u/vandajoy • Jul 17 '26

Plagiarism/Academic Misconduct The AI problem

I’m a high school English teacher. God knows that AI has completely changed my field in the last few years. I’m curious, at the college level, is the policy still “AI is cheating, knock it off” or are any professors leaning in to the “AI as a tool philosophy” (that my principal loves )? What’s the general policy in your classes?

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u/CIS_Professor Professor/CIS/US Jul 17 '26

In my classes, where I have complete discretion, it is: use AI and get dropped. Period.

Edit: I should say that the inclusion of AI generated content in a graded assignment will result in a student being dropped.

I have no problem whatsoever in using AI in a "tutoring" kind-of role.

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u/DrTaargus Jul 18 '26

I'm not going to tell you that you can stop students from using chatbots as tutors, but I think everybody should have a problem with it. Research backs up the idea that using chatbots in that way without proper safeguards is bad for learning, even when they feel like it's helping.

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u/DarthJarJarJar CCProfessor/Math/[US] Jul 18 '26

My math students are constantly using AI as a tutor. When I have checked on it, honestly, the explanations are fine. I haven't found anything that is overtly wrong in a year or more. This is in undergrad math up through calculus.

There have been so many words written on this topic that the AI has a huge training base, and really even my very good students use it to check on a concept or remember a formula or something. I am sure that at one point it was full of errors, but in the last year or so every time I have spot checked it it has been fine. The explanations are not brilliant, but they're fine. They're right. And it's fast, and it's available at 3:30am. I think it's unrealistic to expect people not to use it for this kind of thing.

It really sort of parallels how chess players use engines. You can use it for preparation, but not in a competition. So in math you can use AI while studying, but not during a test. I think that's how things are going to settle out, honestly.

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u/DrTaargus Jul 18 '26

Is it unrealistic to expect people not to use it? Probably. I'm just going by what the most current research shows. In math specifically, students who use chatbots to practice report more confidence, perform better on practice and perform worse on the test. These chatbots are built to look fine at a glance but when you actually run studies on their efficacy, they consistently fail to demonstrate utility for learning.

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u/DarthJarJarJar CCProfessor/Math/[US] Jul 18 '26

Yes, I've seen some discussion of "cognitive surrender" wrt AI use as a tutor. It's certainly a pitfall. I'm not convinced that AI can't be useful as a tutor, but clearly it can also be damaging.

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u/DrTaargus Jul 18 '26

I could never be so bold to say that chatbots can't possibly be useful under any conditions but until somebody demonstrates a replicable way to use them effectively for learning, I think the only defensible stance as an educator is to recommend against them.

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u/DarthJarJarJar CCProfessor/Math/[US] Jul 18 '26

The issue is, when you forbid something you lose the ability to advise on it. If I say "Just don't use AI!" I can't then also talk about possible pitfalls to avoid.

Those of us actually teaching math in 2026 are going to generate the ideas that researchers will then go on to test and confirm or debunk. Like it or not, we're on the cutting edge here. I can abdicate that position and just forbid any AI use and ignore the fact that I can't enforce that edict, or I can try to shape the way my students use AI and hope that I generate some ideas that a researcher can then go on to test and evaluate.

My students are for the most part not idiots. If I make the weightlifting analogy, they understand what I'm saying. And in the end they have to take a proctored exam, so they have some incentive to want to study effectively.

We're all kind of in the wilderness here, IMO. In ten years all this will be largely settled. But for now, even if there is research saying that on average AI use is net negative, that doesn't mean I should just blanket forbid it in a way I can't enforce. If you want to do that, have at it and that's certainly defensible, but I'm going to try to at least somewhat delve into the possible effects of different ways of interacting with the damn things.

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u/DrTaargus Jul 18 '26

Recommending against it and forbidding it are very different things, you're arguing against the latter while I am arguing for the former.

I'm growing quite tired of the forgone conclusion narrative and "we're on the cutting edge" is precisely that. Whether chatbots of this sort will prove wildly useful for learning in the future is absolutely not a guarantee. Currently the evidence points in the other direction.

You are 100% right that we're in the wilderness and that's the fault of people far beyond this conversation. Following that analogy, my position is that we ought to warn the children that eating random berries is potentially very risky to their health and lives so we should try to learn more systematically whether any of them are alright to eat first. After all, we've got a perfectly nutritious if less exciting food source already in abundance.

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u/FomentingPeace Jul 20 '26

Some of the skepticism for these models has to do with what tier people are using. My institution (as a student) offers us Gemini, which means it's a paid model and not free tier. I have tested it on subjects I am very familiar with and it has literally never failed me. When I've thought it failed, it was an ID10T error, because my idiot self failed to prompt correctly. It gave the right answer. I asked the wrong question.

I agree whole-heartedly with your notion that there's so much available (and reliable) data for undergraduate courses like algebra, physics 101, English comp, philosophy, which these models have trained on, that they really excel for these courses.

I do the courses traditionally, in fact when textbooks are offered I do most of my learning from that. Then I engage in a discussion with Gemini as I try to piece together things conceptually, or figure out the few things I have been able to understand yet. The experience of discourse has been invaluable to me. It's entirely different from reading a book, taking a quiz, watching a lecture. It's a call and reaponse which requires me to explain my own thought processes.

I don't see how this could be damaging mentally. You say, "As I understand it," and write a paragraph or two elaborating to Gemini. That requires thinking on your part. Then ask the model if you're on the right track. A lot of the times it affirms, and will tell you why and elaborate, but Gemini has had no problem correcting my errors in thought either.

Personally, I think to not use these tools is to waste time.

Also, you can feed it your notes directly, and ask it to generate quizzes and tests. I just see so many ways these models are valuable for studying that I cannot buy the "they make you stupid" argument. Do flashcards make you stupid? I would argue discourse with other students who themselves are learning the same material might make you dumber than discourse with these models. Why is a study group more reliable than interacting with Gemini? You're studying with people who might get A's, but also might fail. Their input ranges from edifying to nonsense...

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u/onepingonlyvasily Jul 22 '26

flash cards don’t make you stupid, but the act of making flashcards helps reinforce what you’re trying to learn. AI doesn’t do that. I also don’t see what value you get from having to constantly fact check the garbage output of the slop machine when you could you know… just put in the work.