More than six months after ChatGPT was released to the public, artificial intelligence (AI) remains a largely grey area in the academic world.
Though some Carleton professors have embraced AI as a valuable learning tool, with one professor even incorporating the technology into the classroom as a “student,” others have expressed concerns about AI’s potential for bias.
In his fourth-year Corporate Law Seminar, Alberto Salazar, an associate professor in Carleton’s Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University, welcomed its first AI student, ChatGPT.
In this seminar, students have the opportunity to interact with ChatGPT when faced with challenging topics.
“It really helps the class move forward when there is a moment of confusion or uncertainty,” Salazar said.
According to Salazar, one of the healthier ways to prevent plagiarism is to critically engage with artificial intelligence and allow students to see the many ways the robot can fail.
“By criticizing [ChatGPT], we are also showing [students] that relying on the robot can be very problematic,” Salazar said, highlighting the lack of awareness surrounding the accuracy and privacy issues presented by excessive use of the technology.
“[ChatGPT] is not updated, and it’s not sensitive to local information. The robot can enrich the conversation, but it can also be biased or provide false information,” Salazar added.
However, other professors at the university have concerns regarding this fairly new technology, including Jim Davies, a professor in the Department of Cognitive Science.
“There is a strong conviction among many professors, including myself, that learning how to write is learning how to think,” Davies said.
In that regard, Davies said he is concerned that students will not reap the same thinking and writing benefits solely from editing AI generated texts.
“One solution that has been offered is that students might have to write by hand in class,” said Davies.
According to the cognitive science professor, one downside to this potential solution is the limitation that comes with writing within a given period of time without supporting evidence.
In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the university said course instructors for each individual course are responsible for explicitly stating whether the use of AI is permitted or prohibited in their course outline.
Melanie Chapman, Carleton University’s ombudsperson, explained the basis of academic integrity violation allegations regarding plagiarism.
“When a TA or an instructor suspects that there has been a violation of [the Academic Integrity Policy], they should be sending their allegations to the appropriate Associate Dean’s office,” said Chapman.
According to Chapman, Ombuds services has not been documenting the number of allegations specifically linked to artificial intelligence.
“Our office does not keep statistics for the number of Academic Integrity violations of the university,” she said. “That would be for individual associate deans and individual faculties to track.”
Aanya Baindur, a third-year Bachelor of Commerce student, said welcoming AI into the academic world is essential to minimizing plagiarism and other academic integrity violations.
“With any piece of new technology, there will always be those who are afraid of the consequences and what it would mean for education in a changing world,” Baindur said.
According to Baindur, instead of fighting the changes that A.I. brings to the system, it’s important to teach students to engage with it in an ethical manner.
“Last semester, I took a sociology and business course that had some very complicated topics that were very new to me,” Baindur said.
“Trying to understand [the material] from the provided text was extremely difficult, but asking ChatGPT to summarize it and explain it in a better way allowed me to really further my learning,” added Baindur.
Carleton’s Academic Integrity Policy has yet to be revised in its mandatory review June of 2028 to examine the role of artificial intelligence at the university..
“The Academic Integrity Policy, specifically to Carleton, is a policy that is reviewed on a cyclical basis,” said Chapman. “If the university feels that specific examples need to be introduced into the policy in the next review, that would be for the university to consider.”
Featured image by Nick Brousseau.
