The Student Dilemma: How Do I Prove I Wrote This Essay?
An Interview with a College Student about AI and the Creative Process
Greetings, Educating AI Subscribers and Readers!!!
Our community continues to grow. We just celebrated the 800 subscriber mark. Thank you, everyone, for the interest and engagement.
In addition, I am excited to announce that Educating AI has 2 new recommenders: Tomas Maixner’s NeuralBytes and Daniel Nest’s Why Try AI?.
Tomas’s Substack offers amazing deep dives into technical and cultural issues surrounding the advancement of AI technology.
Daniel's Substack, boasting over 4000 subscribers, is a recognized resource offering practical insights aimed at helping readers maximize the benefits of multi-modal AI.
The popularity of my latest post at
indicates to me how hungry teachers, administrators, parents, and students are for real guidance and insight into the AI integration in today’s schools.Now a year after the launch of ChatGPT, most Education X AI newsletters have exhausted the bullet-list approach to this problem, which is rather reminiscent of the solutions that large language models would generate if asked tackle a similarly complex task.
Educating AI is flourishing due to its strong theoretical foundation, coupled with research-backed, classroom-proven methodologies, practices, and lessons.
Our network is ever-growing, now including a diverse range of experts from various fields such as linguistics, philosophy, computer science, computer engineering, literacy instruction, and curriculum design. For this rich diversity of participants and contributors, Educating AI has Substack to thank.
In this newsletter, I bring you the second in my short beginning-of-the-year interview series with another stakeholder in the ongoing debate about how to best integrate and implement AI into today’s schools and universities.
Too often we educators have overlooked the voices and perspectives of our students while determining the principles and practices for navigating the challenging transition from a state of disruption to one of experimentation and normalization.
The newsletter you are about to read is an effort to “set the record straight” as many of my favorite 90s hip-hop artists used to say.
Zainah is an amazing young woman. I taught her in a variety of different contexts at my current school. I spoke on her behalf at our school’s prestigious end-of-the-year awards ceremony. During that event, I shared that she “has a wild heart and an unbounded devotion to the arts, and is set to living a life grander and richer than her own imaginations.”
As you will see in this newsletter, Zainah continues to walk by her own drumbeat. I am particularly impressed by her to sift through the complicated social, ethical, and institutional issues that Gen AI carries with it.
How can a student—in this day and age—prove that an essay is their own work? It struck me once again—while reading Zainah’s responses—that these big AI corporations did not spend sufficient time thinking through this very real controversy before turning their technology loose on the world.
I appreciate the way Zainah’s contribution helps us reconfigure the current controversy about AI and plagiarism. The real problem here is how can students prove to their teachers that an essay is their own work. More pointedly, how will teachers’ perceptions about the skills and aptitudes of particular students influence their decision to pursue investigations into suspected over-reliance on AI technologies throughout the composition process?
Much food for thoughts here…
Section 1: Personal Introduction
Could you share a bit about yourself? Who are you? What are you excited about right now? What is it like to be on a college campus these days?
Who am I? That’s a really great question that I still have yet to find a solid answer for. For the sake of not getting into philosophical jargon, I’m Zainah. I’m 19 years old, a psych student at Ohio University, and an insufferable music junkie. I do not possess the ability to enjoy something casually. It always has to consume my soul in some capacity. I’ve just recently got out of a rut that 2023 has so graciously put everyone through, so right now, I’m ridiculously excited to be here, alive, and with most of my sanity… and also this coming New Year. I have so many concerts on my lineup as well as articles for my blog that *fingers crossed* will be put out on time!
College these days is in unusual limbo, and I say this because this is one of the most pivotal times one can live through. Not to mention, whatever’s going on in the world right now is not making things any easier. To put it into perspective of those who have not been to college in a while (or at all), you’re pulled in one direction to put your all into your education and then you’re pulled in another direction to just live without hesitation or second thought, fueling a fire that’s burning within, all while you’re unsure of the time you do have left. The Earth is on fire, love no longer seems to be the first human instinct, and the good folk who are getting the short end of the stick of whatever society hurls at them are being blamed by the big corporate bros who are currently drying up their oil-saturated tears with their hundred dollar bills.
There’s freedom and density in the air for those who really pay attention.
How do you find a balance between your academic pursuits and personal interests, especially in this unique post-pandemic landscape?
I’m still trying to navigate that! Aside from taking 16 credit hours per semester, I also have a job on campus as a resident advisor (RA). There are weeks where I feel as though my schedule is pummeling all of its weight down on me and then a short period of time once in a while where I feel like I have a grip on things. Typically, I’d try to save my hobbies for the weekends or breaks, but burnout would catch up to me and I’d end up sleeping most of my time off away. So I feel like that’s definitely a work in progress.
Section 2: Discovering AI
When did you first encounter generative AI, and what was your initial reaction?
The first I really ever encountered generative AI was while I was sitting in one of my Gen. Ed’s. My professor was explaining an assignment, and she said something along the lines of “if you use ChatGPT or anything of that sort, you’re getting an automatic zero.” Everyone else was nodding around me, but I was the only one who had no idea what the hell ChatGPT was, so I asked. When she explained it to me, my heart kind of sank a little bit.
A part of me was scared that there was no definite way of determining whether something was mustered from hours of juicing the brain fluids or if it came up in the matter of seconds by a program. I heard horror stories not long after of people spending weeks on an assignment only to get shot down because of a “plagiarism/AI detecting” site flagged their work, so justifiably, I had that fear looming over me that one of the things I’m most passionate about was not going to be seen as straight from the soul.
At the time, what impact did you think AI would have on American life and society?
If you couldn’t tell already, I’m a little bit of an old soul. My experience and exposure to AI had me believing that life as we knew it was going to be completely altered and not for the better because of AI. I definitely pictured a Sci-Fi, post-apocalyptic robotic society where we did not have power over being human or really share the human experience of imperfection. What really shook me was when the remaining members of The Beatles used AI to release one last song that had been in their archives. When I realized that AI was used in the mixing process rather than recreating the voices of deceased members, I was a little bit at ease. But then that was completely eviscerated when I scrolled on TikTok to find people using AI to create songs using their favorite artist’s voice or make them cover songs that they’ve never covered. Some of them sounded a little funky, but that’s something that can be improved over time. Which is scary. The very things that we create as humans are no longer completely human, it’s being taken over by perfect codes and sequences.
On the other hand, I also saw a little bit of light in this gloom. What if in the face of generative-AI, we develop something different as humans without the need of digitizing it? What if different countercultures that we never expected to exist rise as a response to where AI is taking us as a society, or what if there’s a revival in old cultures that seemed to disappear? There’s much to still think about.
Section 3: College's AI Response
In what ways has your college responded to the rapid advancements in AI technology?
While there haven’t been any “official statements” regarding AI that I know of, I’ve heard that most of the instructors seem to be not too fond of it. I can’t tell you enough about how many syllabus days I’ve had to sit through where professors would glean over the Academic Integrity section, pause, sigh, and then say something along the lines of “listen, I don’t like to be this person but if your work is clearly not your own or done by AI, it’s an automatic zero.”
A part of me empathizes with people who feel that AI might be the only way to get their assignments done as I have felt the weight of being in a high pressure environment, but at the same time, why are you in the classes you’re in just to abuse AI? It’s a waste of money. At that point, there should just be a major dedicated specifically to AI as I feel it’s a working body of knowledge all of its own that needs to be revised, polished, and refurbished. I’m also not too ecstatic about the idea of doing something like seeking medical attention in the future only to find out that my doctor is more proficient in ChatGPT than they are in diagnosing me.
I know how dark and dreary I’ve sounded throughout this interview, like a senile old man yelling at teenagers to get the hell off of his property, but I’ve heard of professors using this boom in AI to their advantage and I have to say, it’s kind of genius. I haven’t had these professors myself but for a moment in time, I’ve lived vicariously through old roommates and Co-RA’s.
Picture this: you’re sitting in a lecture hall with one of the most renowned professors on campus. They’re leaning against a desk of some sort on the first day and without any introductions, they blurt out. “I’ll let you use AI in this class, however you please. You will get an A. However, you will only get that A if and ONLY if, in your own words, you explain how the program you used got to that point. Could be a couple of sentences and yes I will be checking if you actually did that explanation by hand.”
When I heard about that policy, my mind was kind of blown. It’s almost as if instead of succumbing to what AI has been doing to a majority of students, it’s taking “the lazy way out” and intertwining actual thoughts and work into it. It gives students a pass to understand that some of the grueling, 4+ hours a problem work is sometimes unnecessary, but the knowledge of how getting from point A to point B is absolutely crucial. Hell, I cringe about the thought of long division or explaining why Fisher’s LSD helps determine where crucial values are, but I can most definitely highlight why they’re important and how a program can get from question to answer.
Section 4: Changing Perspectives on AI
Do you currently incorporate AI in your academic work?
I do, actually, but not because I don’t feel like doing the work. It’s a part of my work. And there’s really only one time I’ve ever used AI that was required for a class. SPSS in Statistics. I’m still having flashbacks to the research reports I’ve had to pump out this last semester, it is not for the faint of heart and I now have a deeper respect for the major I’m in.
For those who don’t know what SPSS is, it’s a software that does anything and everything math-related. Need a table of critical values? Sure, here you go. How about some graphs and where the level of significance lies in your research? You’ve got it, dude. This program does all, as well as predicting results that have not been accounted for yet. And as I stated in the previous section, you won’t get that A unless you explain exactly how, where, and why you got the results that you did.
This has been a challenge for me to incorporate as I deeply enjoy and better understand concepts when they’re done by hand. All in the nitty-gritty of it all. However, I’ve come to appreciate the challenge as I know that I would’ve completely lost all sanity if i had to do the computational portions by hand if the explanations alone took me weeks to do.
Section 5: Writing Practice
What kind of writing do you most enjoy?
The kind of writing that sits there, gnawing at my brain for at least 2 weeks. The most impactful pieces I’ve written range from an Album Review to poetry. I’m in no way trying to insinuate that I’m some genius that’s completely untouchable, but I know when my writing is going to be damn good. It feels like a scream buried deep in my chest and when I finally let loose, it’s like there’s nothing else in the world than my soul and whatever I’m writing about.
What pieces of writing are you most proud of?
I have two works that come to mind that I frequently go back to re-read myself. The first is a poem that came from hours of listening to one of my favorite songs, Sacred The Thread by Greta Van Fleet. I feel as though they’ve had the most impact on me not just in my passion for music, but also in writing style. That, however, I choose to keep to myself as I find it important as a writer to be able to separate work that I find valuable in spreading and pieces that just speak to me and only me. Not every musician plays for an audience at every waking moment, so why should a writer bind themselves to the notion of exposure?
The second one is sort of an exposé I wrote about the incredibly stagnant and misogynistic rock scene, specifically in Athens, OH. I spent so long on this piece and it paid off in some sense. It might be a reach, but after the release of that article during Spring 2023, there were more diverse bands that popped out of the woodworks the following semester. Maybe I did something, maybe it’s a coincidence, but who’s really to know?
Tying this all back to AI, I’m incredibly proud of these pieces because they all came organically from me. There was zero AI or prompt help tied to any of these works, they just stemmed from pure passion and a little bit of anger.
Section 6: AI Evaluation
From your viewpoint, what are the benefits and drawbacks of AI in the educational sector?
There are so many “obvious” drawbacks with AI in education, whether it be academic dishonesty or a lack of originality. It’s an awkward push and pull of benefits and consequences.
When there are benefits, however, they’re grand. AI cuts down on unnecessary work and effort that can be streamlined towards something else, questions that’s simply can’t be answered by AI. It allows students to gain back that intrinsic motivation to do their work rather than falling back onto extrinsic means.
In your opinion, what would an ideal state of symbiosis between humans and AI look like in an educational context?
There’s no arguing that the symbiosis of AI and humans is always going to be a tango that may not even come to an end, especially in the world of academics. A part of me is always going to have that fear that we’re going to be overtaken by robots who simply know too much, cheesy I know. But I feel like there is some balance, even in the dips and twists. For instance, AI does the hard work for educators and students alike while the “hard work” can be focused on things that are much more meaningful like deep and thorough understanding. How do we get to that? I have zero clue and I doubt we’ll see that perfect balance in our lifetime because that’s just how things are in life. Some answers come long after we’re gone, but it’s imperative that we lay down the foundations and groundwork for future generations to continue.
Artistic Image of Zainah:
Here are some articles that I’m still super stoked about!
Garage Rock Article:
Album Review:
https://blasphemuse.wixsite.com/blasphemuse/post/album-review-tinderbox-siouxsie-and-the-banshees
Thanks, Zainah!!! And thanks, everyone, for reading another edition of Educating AI!
If you want to drop a comment or if you want me to relay a message to Zainah, leave a message below.
Nick Potkalitsky, Ph.D.
Thanks for giving Zainah a voice on your Substack, Nick!
It's refreshing to hear a "real" person's perspective, outside of my AI bubble.
I tend to lean on the side of optimism when it comes to AI's long-term impact on education (as well as many other fields.) We haven't quite found a bulletproof way of incorporating AI into the curriculum, but it's a necessity increasingly more educators will have to face.
I kind of like the approach of the teacher quoted here: "I’ll let you use AI in this class, however you please. You will get an A. However, you will only get that A if and ONLY if, in your own words, you explain how the program you used got to that point."
This is probably the future direction we're heading. Seen in that light, AI could help to level up the quality of education across the board and maybe lift the expectations we can place on students collaborating with AI tools.
I personally enjoy the philosophy of Ethan Mollick, who mentioned that he now outright *requires* the use of AI in some of his classes, with the added expectation of higher performance and deeper appreciation of the topics. And he also wants his students to reflect on the areas where AI is helpful, and in what ways.
I understand the knee-jerk reaction of many educators to ban AI, but it'll be exceedingly hard to put that genie back in the bottle. Also, it may well lead to more horror stories of students being accused of cheating when they haven't, seeing how AI detectors aren't reliable, to put it mildly. (Ethan Mollick actually covers this as the very first item in his recent FAQ: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/what-people-ask-me-most-also-some)
I'd love to see AI become ubiquitous and truly useful as a brainstorming partner, a tutor, a second pair of eyes, etc. for students and help them reach their potential faster. I hope educators will embrace this future and work towards making it a reality. Guess "Educating AI" is one great place to start, eh?
EDIT: Oh, and thank you for the shout-out, Nick!
Nick, that was a brilliant idea! As Daniel noted, bringing a fresh perspective outside the AI BUBBLE is indeed what we might need to consider to maintain a balanced view. Good job 👍