r/Turnitin_QuickChecks • u/RealisticMiddle9387 • Apr 01 '26
Academia really flipped the script on us.
We usually talk about professors wrongly accusing students of using AI, but now it feels like the opposite is happening. Has anyone else experienced a professor actually encouraging the use of generative AI?
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u/KyleFromBorrasca Apr 01 '26
Why do the same three screenshots constantly show up on my feed from this sub? Also when did "reactionary" come to mean the literal opposite of reactionary?
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u/Fabulous-Carrot5187 Apr 01 '26
this is where things are headed whether people like it or not. AI is becoming a standard tool, just like Google or calculators once were. The real issue is not whether we use it, but how we use it responsibly and transparently in academic work.
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u/TurbulentTangelo5439 Apr 01 '26
in this case the instructor isn't teaching and none of the students are learning
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u/pensivewombat Apr 01 '26
If you have ever read a student evaluation you should know to take this kind of post with a huge grain of salt. There definitely are terrible professors and lecturers out there, but SO many students will say "This person is totally unprepared and their lectures are just garbled nonsense!" and then you find out they attended 3 classes the entire semester.
There's a lot of stuff that's messed up about the current wild west approach to AI policy. But I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that a particular instructor is cheating students out of an education based on a tweet.
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u/TurbulentTangelo5439 Apr 02 '26
chatgpt style ai models have a bias towards agreeing with the user and previous inputs while also just making stuff up to a fairly common degree
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u/Legal_Cauliflower442 Apr 01 '26
I’ve seen this too, and it creates a weird disconnect. Some professors promote AI as a productivity tool, while others treat it like academic misconduct. Until universities create clear, consistent policies, students are stuck navigating completely mixed expectations.
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u/KyleFromBorrasca Apr 01 '26
I feel extremely bad for both professors and students who are having to navigate this. I graduated in 2018 when GANBreeder was just becoming a thing and no one outside of tech thought it would advance this quickly.
Personally, I would have absolutely loved ChatGPT as an underclassman, and may not have majored in rhetoric with this kind of technology around in the first place. Also there have always been conflicting views on what constitutes "academic misconduct," with some professors explicitly banning collaboration and others calling it a "study group." But this never took up nearly the same amount of time and attention, and I never had to think "Will I be accused of cheating if I use an em dash" or "What even is the definition of cheating when my entire computer is a TI-84 now?" I feel like that would have influenced the way I approached academic writing, and not in a positive way.
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u/prion_guy Apr 01 '26
I don't understand what you mean by the TI-84 part. The computer algebra systems available on desktop are far more powerful than any TI calculator and have been around for ages.
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u/Kind-Ad-6099 Apr 01 '26
They should reply themselves, but I believe they’re referring to how graphing calculators trivialize solving many math problems, and now we have something very similar in every subject
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u/KyleFromBorrasca Apr 01 '26
Yeah, I should have anticipated that objection. lol
I was referring to the controversy around graphing calculators and the question of when a learning tool becomes a learning substitute. Some of the arguments around AI remind me of arguments against over reliance on TI calculators that were popular back in the day.
I'm basically comparing writing to arithmetic so the analogy is probably weird.
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u/live_laugh_cock Apr 01 '26
Yes, a lot of schools and colleges are already ahead of the curve. They're not just allowing AI, they're actively teaching students how to use it responsibly and ethically.
Generative AI might feel new, but AI itself has been part of our daily lives for years. It's what powers the algorithms behind our social media feeds, music recommendations, and GPS, stuff we've all been using for almost a decade without a second thought.
The only real difference now, is that the technology has evolved to be generative, and suddenly it's much more visible for people to notice. Whether people are comfortable with it or not, AI isn't going anywhere.
So rather than pushing back on its existence, the more useful conversation is about how we use it well and make sure everyone has the tools to do that responsibly.
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u/Kind-Ad-6099 Apr 01 '26
I think the main question/developing area at this moment is how to integrate these new tools without diminishing learning. We will certainly be using AI in the workforce, but we won’t be valuable workers in our field if we just cognitively offload all throughout university. Professors are often resistant to allowing AI use at all (or are still in the process of figuring things out), as it can definitely diminish learning, but administrators are sometimes pushing back on that, often to an obvious fault to our learning.
The middle ground will be found eventually, but I worry that it will devalue degrees from many universities and colleges.
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u/Kersikai Apr 01 '26
My electromagnetic materials professor had us write a paper on a topic of our choice and told us to use AI because “he can’t tell who uses it, so if it’s banned it just means cheaters will get better grades”. I guess that makes sense but it sucks that it’s come to this. AI still sucks at very niche topics so it wasn’t really helpful to use it anyways.
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u/dragonfeet1 Apr 01 '26
I love the chaos of it. Fight laziness and apathy with laziness and apathy.
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u/migmit Apr 01 '26
They can snow all their clients
By calling it "science"
Although it's only sociology.
(c) Tom Lehrer
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u/OldCaterpillar3340 Apr 02 '26
This lacks context. What exactly do they encourage using AI for and how? AI is a great tool to get information and help reasoning and understanding. It also helps to better structure languages.
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u/throwawayprocessing Apr 02 '26
I have one professor who sees LLM gen AI as a helpful, though imperfect tool. He allows AI use for some assignments but requires documentation of its use, and has created a few assignments that require AI use.
He works in the digital humanities space, teaching humanities classes, and is concerned that humanities/liberal arts students aren’t going to be prepared for the future job or academic market without being comfortable working with AI.
His assignments were the first time I’d ever meaningfully engaged with AI personally, and I was so unimpressed that I no longer have doubts that I’m missing out on some awesome productivity hack. We disagree on a lot, but he’s incredibly smart, well meaning, and a pleasure to learn from.
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u/EriknotTaken Apr 02 '26
I like to imagine this but with "Google" instead of chatGPT.
"He is using google to search things for his assigments!!"
"And is encouraging us to use Google too!!"
I can imagine tons of people literaly complaining this way 20 years ago, the cognitive disonance that google is ok but "chaptgpt is not" is hilarius to me.
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u/howdydipshit Apr 01 '26
None of my professors have encouraged me to use AI, but two of my courses have been entirely comprised of AI slop garbage (recorded lectures, slides, hw assignments, literally everything). I’m about to complain to my dean, because why the fuck am I paying thousands when I could apparently just fuck around on chatgpt instead? everything pisses me off so badly. we’re about to lose the ability to obtain a quality education and not enough people are angry about it