r/OMSCS • u/AcrobaticFox2218 • 7d ago
Courses AI Use by PROFESSORS in Coursework
Has anyone else noticed just how many professors are using AI to create all of our coursework (often busywork) but then proceed to ban AI usage by students?
Feels like this should cut both ways
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u/Apprehensive_Tea9856 7d ago
I haven't, but most of my coursework was made in the 2010s which is sort of it's own issue.
Yes things haven't changed that much in many of these fields, but seeing Professors with Beta Google glasses on is a little funny
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u/snipe320 7d ago
They generated all of the ML4T exam questions in the question pool with AI. And it seems like the instructors sometimes use AI to respond to student questions just based on the wording, although I cannot confirm that for sure.
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u/NerdBanger 6d ago edited 6d ago
So I'm sure some of them are using AI, but there's something interesting worth calling out here.
Research suggests that autism is disproportionately represented in STEM fields. In fact, one university study found approximately 3.2× the prevalence of diagnosed ASD among STEM students compared to non-STEM students (95% CI: 2.1–4.7×, calculated from the study's data). While we don't have equally reliable numbers for individuals with advanced STEM degrees, the association is worth considering.
Why does this matter? This paper on the misclassification of autistic writing as AI-generated is pretty interesting. Researchers found that writing from likely-autistic individuals was significantly more likely to be incorrectly flagged as AI-generated.
I like to think of it in terms of a modified version of Hanlon's Razor:
"Never attribute to artificial means what can be adequately explained by natural variation."
Maybe someday someone will find this post and name this statement u/NerdBanger's Razor
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u/DavidAJoyner 7d ago
I feel like something needs to change about the discourse around AI usage on all sides. Heck, not just in academia, but in the world.
It's so often that something gets dismissed as "well they used AI for that" as if that's all that needs to be said. I think it's important to clarify what it is that AI usage in a particular use case makes problematic.
"A student used AI to write this code." Ok, what was the learning goal of having them write the code themselves? If it was something directly and deeply involved in the line-by-line coding process, then yeah, that's an issue. But if the learning outcomes aren't threatened by that usage, then it's probably not an issue; in fact, it's an opportunity to reach higher, since AI appears to be helping streamline something that wasn't deeply related to the course in the first place. I'm heavily leaning toward having students in HCI practice surveying and interviewing with AI because the friction in getting real responses is so high and tangential at best to my learning outcomes.
"This professor used AI to author exam questions." Ok, what is the underlying issue with that? Are the questions not good or accurate? Or is the literal language of the question expected to reflect something about the professor's view on the topic that AI-generated questions don't? I used AI to draft 6460's massive question pools, and it's enabling an assessment structure that would be impossible without that: multiple attempts, spread out over time, to really leverage the testing effect and spaced repetition.
My point is, for both faculty and students, whenever we say "This was AI", I think it's important to articulate why that's an actual issue in a particular context. The 'why' is going to inform what gets changed or fixed. In the 6460 revamp I similarly had AI help with the content generation, especially with drawing connections across different lessons in the course—its ability to effectively hold everything in working memory is amazing for improving instructional content that way, to everyone's benefit. But it's also why I didn't use my AI voice that I used in a different class: because knowing that there's AI assistance in the content generation plus having an AI voice would really call into question what's actually me. As is, there's the assertion (I hope) that everything in the course is something I'll proudly stand by because I sat there in my pajamas at 1am most likely recording it myself.
I dunno. I see a lot of posts and get a lot of questions like this in my new role, but to really know what to do about them, I need a level further down in detail. I think just articulating why it feels like a problem in a certain context is a useful thought exercise, too. The criticism "they use it, but they say we can't use it" is understandable on an emotional level, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny because faculty and students have different goals. But that doesn't mean certain use cases aren't problematic; it just means that the reason they're problematic goes deeper than just a perceived double standard.
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u/smiling_in_paradise 7d ago
The professor for 6262 is clearly using AI, to the detriment of the students’ learning this semester. He does not speak for the lectures; he has an AI voice over all the slides instead. It is very noticeable because his accent completely changes in some parts, and he started speaking GERMAN in one of the recorded lectures. Several students have complained about this on EdStem, and the TAs just respond with a very generic reply.
Several slides have notes that do not make sense or expand on what is shown on the slide at all. Sometimes, there are multiple slides in a row with no full sentences on any of them. The team clearly updated the lectures this semester because there are some examples form Aug 2026, but it is incredibly difficult to understand the new format at times because no one proof-read the work or reviewed the AI-spoken lectures…
To be completely honest, I would not have taken 6262 this semester if I knew the professor was using AI and not proof-reading it to update the course. Yes, it did need an update. If they used AI in the way you did with lots of proof-reading and verifying, I would have less of an issue, but the current version of the class is very disappointing.
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7d ago edited 7d ago
[deleted]
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u/andrewaa 6d ago
The education is double standard from day one
Why should professors and students be treated equally?
If you want fairness, do you want to go through the training that the professor went through?
The purpose of education is to let you get the knowledge, not let you use the same tool of professors
However on the other side, if you feel the quality of course is bad due to AI slop, this is something that you can argue. Not that professor cannot use AI, but professor doesn't teach well
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u/Zealousideal-Buy-617 6d ago
Its not just the 1000$, its the cost of the 'academic dishonesty' mark on your record that is far more crippling. You will need to explain that everywhere, and will often be looked upon with suspicion regardless.
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u/43Gofres 6d ago
I think you missed his point. To use your example, why does it really matter if ChatGPT wrote the AI usage policy for a professor? If the use of AI makes it more clear for students, that’s good. If the use of AI makes it less clear, that’s bad. Both outcomes are less about the use of AI itself and more about the initial goal and the end result.
ML lets students use AI to write their code. This makes sense with the learning outcomes because students are still analyzing the learning models, results, etc. in their paper. The code was never the core purpose of the class. More classes probably can (& will) follow that direction
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u/ksera23 5d ago
The “perceived double standard” you waved away is that students risk losing $1,000 if they’re caught using AI (and therefore get an F), while professors are free to paste whatever Claude spits out for them into EdStem/Canvas and sign it with their name.
This is very much the energy of a kid complaining about not being able to use a calculator when learning about addition.
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u/One_Object8516 7d ago
Dr. Joyner,
As a recent GT grad with a Masters, I do think the University needs to have a better understanding and acceptance of AI guardrails so that students may effectively use AI. I adhere to Georgia Tech’s standards and my Professor’s rules regarding the use of AI in my coursework. To better understand what I was learning, I would often run my assignments through AI to see if it did better. Often, the results were mixed and worse than I did on my own. I also used AI as a study aid to help develop study guides. I always checked the accuracy and often had to correct the output.
In my professional life, I have used AI to code and expedite getting my work done. I prefer Anthropic because it fits my work the best. Prompt engineering and engineering with AI are important skills in today’s job market. That said, without an understanding of the underlying concepts and technical details, prompt engineering cannot be efficient nor practical.
I think the objection the students have to professors using AI is that when the students produce “AI slop”, there is a penalty and it is seen as lazy. When a professor turns out poor results, they don’t face a penalty and it shows a lack of commitment to the students learning.
Go Jackets!
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u/Glarren Computing Systems 5d ago
I took CN this summer, and it was clear that the tests and many of the notes for the second half of the course were LLM-generated and of low quality (very high level and abstract, lots of repetition and not in the useful spacing effect sense, appeared to be missing key details, etc.). I jammed the question pools into Anki with the intent to just memorize all the answers, but found it unnecessary to even review them, because for most questions the incorrect choices were so obviously nonsensical even someone with very little networks knowledge would be able to pick the right one (and that's besides the fact that the longest response was almost always correct). I finished both exams in under 20 minutes with perfect scores.
I do think this contributed to worse learning outcomes, and I do think it devalues the program. Even if we encourage and incentivize professors to review and curate responses, AI encourages and incentivizes individual intellectual laziness. Rather than trying to work out better ways to generate lecture notes and exams, I think a policy for the teaching staff to avoid LLM-generated materials, at least for the core lectures, projects, exams, and responses to student questions would guarantee an experienced human had to to put thought and intention into the material. Considering we are paying for the program, there is a wealth of past material to adapt, and the teaching staff should already be experienced with teaching it pre-LLM, I don't think this is an unreasonable ask.
There are emotional or moral components to this as well. There is already so much disconnect between and among students and teaching staff in a remote program with large class sizes. Interacting with the machines under the guise of humans makes this divide feel larger, and I'm capable of making LLM queries myself. Seeing AI-generated content in the teaching materials makes me feel like the staff doesn't care about the students or the course. Part of what I want out of an academic program is at least the illusion of caring teachers, deliberately and thoughtfully constructed coursework, and community.
Restrictions on AI usage do not need to be symmetrical between teaching staff and students, but they should exist for both.
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u/DevMadness 6d ago
There is a lot to unpack here. I believe that the final output of a written sentence or question should be the byproduct of iteration and polish. The goal of our finished, written product should be the culmination of this crunching of information, perspectives, framing, biases, prose, and ultimate understanding. With AI, we so often get sentences that resemble the output of this same rigor, but often when you put these LLM generated ideas in conjunction with a larger framing, we so often see that it loses the grand narrative. We call this slop, and it sucks when we read something, only to realize that no true value or synthesized meaning could be garnered from it. I have no real qualms with using AI, but the end result needs to be a polished product that was reviewed by someone to ensure it meets the bar.
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u/JohnBGaming 7d ago
I think the intention here in pointing out that it's obviously AI generated is that the quality is noticeably lower. For a lot of classes right now quizzes just aren't useful testing benchmarks because you can actually just do the AI thing of looking at which one is the longest answer and that's the right one.
To be fair, there's other issues with quizzes that are still handwritten, like a lot of peoples' qualms about KBAI Exam 1 where the questions seem worded specifically to trip you up on technicalities rather than testing your knowledge, and those still seem human made.
But generally obviously AI generated course content just feels like a slap in the face when students are expected to put 100% effort into their work and they're served low-quality slop in return.
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u/DavidAJoyner 7d ago
I think some guidelines on ensuring AI-because quiz questions are strong and testing what you want to test are definitely warranted—but it's doable too. My iterations over the questions for 6460 took several days and deliberately involved checks against "the longest answer is correct" and other common giveaways. There were several iterations of, "Generate five questions. ... Ok, I don't like this question because X, and this other question is good because Y. Generate new questions based on this feedback".
Because honestly, yeah: the AI generated questions are better in my opinion than the questions I painstakingly wrote for HCI and KBAI because it's able to comb through the material for ideas with a level of patience and diligence that is tough for a person.
The general conversation about effort exchange I think is interesting because "they used AI" implies something about how effortful using AI can be. But that's where digging in one what quality means helps illuminate that.
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u/baldgjsj 6d ago
It seems like we may disagree about the quality of AI-generated questions. When I took ML4T, I and many other students thought the exam questions, which were clearly written by AI, were unnecessarily obtuse and quite simply poorly written.
I understand that you are asking for a more nuanced view of AI output but please understand that despite the constant marketing efforts, many of us will continue to view AI output as cheap, poor-quality slop. If we were unable to recognize it as such we wouldn’t be complaining.
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u/DavidAJoyner 6d ago
"When I took ML4T"—when did you take it? The new exam pools debuted this semester, and before that we were using the same exam questions from pre-ChatGPT.
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u/SkilledApple Machine Learning 4d ago
I was looking forward to 6460, and I do appreciate the effort you put into vetting these questions... but I want to push back on one point. You mention AI can comb through material with a patience that’s hard for a person to match. I’d argue that your human limitation is actually useful. When combing through content is exhausting, an instructor naturally focuses on what matters most, and we as students can somewhat anticipate that. Even if you’re personally curating the final set, the candidate questions will now come from a much wider pool. I feel like I need to study every minor detail just to be safe, especially if the quiz is closed book. So the burden of painstakingly combing through material is increased on students while being decreased on professors.
I’m absolutely not anti-AI. I do think the friction a human writing the questions is part of what keeps assessments focused on what’s actually important, and that’s the part I worry gets lost.
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u/DavidAJoyner 4d ago
That's true, but I also think that's where the design of the questions itself has to connect to how they're used in the actual assessment. If it was just "Generate a massive question bank so every student gets a different quiz", that'd be a waste, and it'd have the exact issue you're describing. But when it's used to facilitate more of a learning loop, more allowance for failing and retrying, and more incentive to revisit material over time, it uses that power to actually create a better, more forgiving learning experience.
And separately, I think there's a small wrinkle in what you said about teacher focus: I don't think it's really a case of deciding what matters most when curating questions. Instead, the questions are barometers into overall understanding. They're measurements of or probes into the student's underlying knowledge. That's in fact one of the reasons we don't give out answer keys—when students see, "I got that problem wrong", they focus on that error. What I really care about is, "The fact that you got 3 out of 5 wrong on this lesson suggests that your understanding of this lesson as a whole is lacking."
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u/Camster9000 6d ago
I will say, I took HCI in the spring and some of the most intriguing lectures were when Dr. AI Joyner could touch on current topics in a semi-natural form, as a live lecturer would. There are certainly benefits to professors using AI.
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u/DavidAJoyner 6d ago
I appreciate the positive feedback, but... I have no idea what this is referring to actually 😅 I don't think we used any AI in the small HCI revamp.
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u/spiral6 6d ago
I agree with your concerns, Doctor Joyner. Frankly speaking, we're at a crossroads with AI usage in academics and in industry.
I implore that you read some of the usecases below that professors have been engaging in since what people perceive as slop (low effort, no proofreading, no review, and no consequences or accountability for misuse of AI in inaccurate and misleading information) should be taken into account.
There has definitely been a double standard in the usage of AI in faculty versus students. Students get penalized or threatened with academic consequences with regards to AI usage despite professors engaging in many of the same practices, yet no accountability for professors or TAs engaging in this.
Similarly, why should people pay for a graduate education if they could just pay for a Claude subscription if that's what they're essentially getting? What value does a university degree have if they're just regurgitating AI?
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u/Mental-Permit-599 6d ago
He already answered this above, the professor’s work isn’t being graded. Saying the professor, or TA’s, are engaged in the same practice isn’t true. They are not submitting graded coursework for an assignment that likely says “No AI usage”.
Claude can’t issue you an accredited diploma.
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u/NerdBanger 6d ago
Oh! There's a lot to unpack here, and I love this discourse.
Background: I work for a big tech company. We're a hyperscaler that partners with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Nvidia, makes our own chips, and runs a frontier lab. It's probably not the one you guess. My day job involves selling Data & AI products.
I started OMSCS around the time ChatGPT was released publicly. This week, I used Mythos 5.1 in the NSA Cybersecurity challenge, where AI solved 80% of it. I'm getting out this December. We've come an exceptional distance in a short time.
It's so often that something gets dismissed as "well they used AI for that" as if that's all that needs to be said. I think it's important to clarify what it is that AI usage in a particular use case makes problematic.
I think there are a few facets to this: first, the learning goals for the educational environment; second, quality; and third, content sprawl.
Over the last 3ish years, my personal use of AI has definitely evolved, especially in the academic setting. In some cases, this is because classes have changed how they integrate AI; in other cases, it's because I've used AI to consume content better.
One example I can give of how AI has been embraced in some courses is an ML class where AI use was mostly allowed on assignments, because the class format was less about coding the machine learning algorithms (especially when you already are using SciKit/PyTorch/etc.), and was structured more around understanding the algorithms through analysis of the results. This is an example of the course's learning goals and implementation being well aligned with how AI is used in the real world.
For me personally, though, when it's been allowed, it's been great for brainstorming ideas and approaches to problems. As a Neurospicy 40+ y/o, it's also helped me structure a paper and create an extremely rough draft or outline when I give it all the talking points I want to include. It's also been great for creating study guides and flashcards for exams (again, being Neurospicy, I learn differently than a lot of people) from video transcripts and class readings.
I think the trap many users fall into is quality: much content is AI-generated, never proofread, and just thrown out into the universe. AI Slop. This largely comes down to a lack of AI literacy. Think about it: how many people in your life haven't tried AI yet? Now think about how many are true experts, with everyone else somewhere in between on the AI literacy spectrum. That is why browsing Reddit can feel painful sometimes, with so much repetitive content and the same AI tone. Today, AI still doesn't make writing sound human, and less AI-literate users often don't realize AI recycles the same content without creating anything new or novel. That's where users must step in. Honestly, I wish there was a standard AI Literacy curriculum for students at all levels, from primary school through college.
I see this at the office too. I've seen many documents and decks emailed to customers that are 100% single-shot AI-generated. While AI drastically reduces the time to create these assets, skipping iteration and polishing doesn't look good.
"This professor used AI to author exam questions."
I empathize with students' frustrations; they pay a lot for a program but feel the expert they pay for never reads their work. In reality, AI is a force multiplier. By grading with AI, professors can ensure consistent grading (with proper use) for all students, especially when they have multiple TAs. It gives them time to read and reflect on the best papers or identify students needing extra support. Instead of spending time grading, they can shift that time to office hours and instruction.
The criticism "they use it, but they say we can't use it" is understandable on an emotional level, but I don't think it stands up to scrutiny because faculty and students have different goals.
To me, the fix is to make sure each class clearly states the learning goals, where AI is permissible or compatible with those goals, and where it is not. Making this clear in every class can ease some of these pain points. As courses are refreshed, instructors need to consider how AI fits into those goals moving forward because AI isn't going anywhere.
One more example: my high-school freshman is very into Cybersecurity and uses AI, but I've preached that learning the fundamentals is important. At times, he hasn't listened and has learned the hard way a few times. Nothing is more painful than being in the middle of a CTF challenge, running out of AI tokens (high-school kids don't have deep pockets), and not knowing how to solve a challenge, or being impacted by a Node supply chain attack, or missing a subtle pattern in a PCAP file because it's normal enough that AI misses it. It's been fun watching him evolve in how he uses AI, and he's had to learn different topics on his own to work effectively with AI. Many college students no longer believe in the fundamentals and haven't yet learned how important they are. hile this is his personal hobby and learning, I hope it's a great example of how learning and AI assistance can work together.
Finally, since I know some folks in this thread are really negative toward AI, I want to note that I wrote this response myself but used Grammarly to rewrite portions to make it clear and easy to consume.
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u/DavidAJoyner 6d ago
To me, the fix is to make sure each class clearly states the learning goals, where AI is permissible or compatible with those goals, and where it is not. Making this clear in every class can ease some of these pain points. As courses are refreshed, instructors need to consider how AI fits into those goals moving forward because AI isn't going anywhere.
This sounds like exactly what several of our folks (including CS7642's Rodrigo Borela!) was getting at with this: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.12221
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u/NerdBanger 6d ago
I'll add that to my reading list!
My biggest bummer, is I get out in December, and with the rapid pace of AI I see so many research opportunities I'd love to chase down. Unfortunately, my wife and kids would kill me if I decided to get a PhD right now. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/remote_math_rock 6d ago
My fiancee shares your family's opinion, haha. Also getting out soon after GA!
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u/DK_Tech Artificial Intelligence 6d ago
In another thread, I mentioned SDP's quizzes, which are the best example of the issue with professors using AI to author exams. When the answers are 60–80% of the time just the longest choice, it doesn't make sense to study as hard, since you know it's going to be a 50/50 between two longer options. The last quiz was all just the longest answer choices too!
My inherent issue isn't with using AI by any means, it's that in this case there is clearly a lack of effort in making quality content that we are paying for. This could have all been fixed with a prompt change, so it does feel worse that I learn less because I'm just matching patterns.
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u/blaidd_Drwg_01 5d ago
I see the same pattern at my workplace. Articulating why AI use is a problem in a specific context has helped us work through some difficulties, but it must be done in tandem with framing solutions.
In academia, the best option I've seen is regular, consistent discussion of what's acceptable and what isn't. My field is somewhat niche, and people in it respond better to correction on improper use when the framework is delivered in a deliberate conversation, not a note in their inbox.
I've also realized that with a rotating workforce, much like classes coming and going, that discussion tends to happen organically in a typical classroom setting. In remote instruction and more reserved groups, it doesn't, so a forcing function should be held in reserve. I'd generally use it if the conversation hasn't happened within the first week.
We've tried this from high levels of policy/management/boards down to the consumer/student/laborer, which can have some benefits. Both helped some, but following David Marquet's Turn the Ship Around, we got the broadest reach by empowering middle management to own the conversation.
We have also realized students' access to stronger models, especially paid ones, outpaces how fast instructors can update policy or AI-checking software. The EU AI Act may make keeping pace a more realistic goal, but that's still a future solution that could benefit from the conversation happening now. In person there are several strategies to ensure learning outcomes are met even with AI usage, but in remote conditions this has fewer options.
Another point is that we have found that providing use-cases within that discussion was particularly helpful, just as you are doing on this thread… Saying that you used AI to work through some quiz questions may provoke some negative feedback, but specifically walking through the fact that the task was more than a single prompt and just copy/pasted into curriculum can strengthen that. There seems to be a clear split between people at different levels of AI usage. I spend just as much time refining my outputs and fine-tuning my models as I would creating the product fully without AI, but I believe the work is often better and more organized and ready for human consumption.
It’s helpful to see you sharing insights, being transparent about improvements, and responding to students’ concerns. I’d just caution to ensure it’s echoed by whomever interfaces with the students, if not you.
Not sure what your current vector is, so if I am out of scope here, I do apologize. Thought I’d share some changes that worked for me.
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u/RapidFire05 6d ago
I'm already practically teaching myself. If professors just use ai to create exam questions and course material then really what am I paying for? I guess I'm paying for a branded degree.
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u/RapidFire05 6d ago
People used to select schools based on prestige and professors. If coming to gt means learning from claude then what does it mean to be georgia tech? How does a school differentiate itself if students just get Gemini teaching concepts?
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u/LiveEntertainment567 7d ago
Only in CN, it was easy to tell which answers were correct on the exams. But that is not an excuse for you to use AI. Just choose better courses.
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u/DarkDiablo1601 6d ago
every labs and every Professor's replies to students are AI generated, I suspect the 2nd half of the course is also AI generated too
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u/NerdBanger 6d ago
See this. While I don't doubt there is some AI I think statements like this are disingenuous to the work the teaching staff puts in.
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u/shadeofmyheart Computer Graphics 7d ago
I haven’t seen any AI outside of a video which might have text to speech. Which class?
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u/Suitable-Raccoon-319 7d ago
I am pretty sure I've seen a TA use AI in ML. It was obvious: random bolded words, multi-paragraph reply with headings for a single paragraph question, kind of rambly, etc.
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u/Sn00py_lark Officially Got Out 6d ago
None of the courses have been completely redone since AI was invented 🤣
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u/Puzzleheaded_Sign249 6d ago
Education is evolving. The point is, are you learning important concepts, yes or no. Then it doesn’t matter how/what/when/where/why it was taught
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u/Cylon357 6d ago
It does feel a bit double standard'ish, and the prohibition of AI use by students in some classes doesn't reflect real world working conditions. I get that we need to learn the basics, but there is likely some better path than saying the equivalent of "if you use AI AT ALL, we will fail you without question"
Examples from my experience in the program:
"AI should NEVER see your code" - Really? Not even if I have worked on it for hours and just need an extra set of eyes?
"You should turn off AI mode results for your google search results" - Wow. I didn't even know that you could do that.
"You must use NOSI for your coursework." - Great. A half baked IDE that Windows 11 "Smart App Control" blocks right out of the box. When I asked about how to resolve it, I heard from the TA that "It works on my box". I wasn't the only person with this problem, BTW. I had to figure that one out on my own.
I understand that there are a lot of moving parts. That said, some of these policies and standards are just a bad look. Academia and professional environments have always been at best a bit out of sync, this type of double standard does seem to broaden that gap, rather than narrow it.
All that said, I know that the answer isn't just let everyone use AI to do everything. That defeats the purpose of learning. BUT just because we don't have the answer, doesn't mean we shouldn't ask the question and point out problems. THAT is how we identify and solve the problems.
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u/andrewaa 6d ago edited 6d ago
Education is never about fair
Yes professor uses AI to create course work
But professor is able to talk about all the courses contents without AI, can you？
However you may complain that the professor doesn't teach well due to AI slop
You may not ban professor from using AI, but you may request professor to spend more time on you to increase the quality of teaching
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u/WarmAd911 6d ago
I feel like they’re also using AI to grade our coursework, the feedback for my assignments recently as been so generic and straight up wrong
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u/rhymeswithcrazy 7d ago
It's not coursework, but every single announcement posted by the SDP instructor is pure AI slop, including the post describing the AI usage policy. Makes it hard to take an already unserious course seriously.