Is the rise of Generative AI a big threat for an Academic Integrity?

The rise of generative AI tools like ChatGPT is changing the way assessments are conducted in educational institutions. Here I am referring this issue in context to secondary, senior secondary and undergraduate students who are in their learning age and building the foundations of any skill. For PhD scholars, researchers etc, the dilution of academics ethics by such AI tools is a separate concern to be discussed in other part

To come up with an answer for this tricky question, we need to first understand two leading terms used i.e. “Academic integrity” and “Generative AI”.

So, what “Academic integrity” means, technically it is defined as ‘the expectation that teachers, students, researchers and all members of the academic community act with: honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility.’ 

To realise the key elements that defines these adjectives used in the definition we can say academic integrity refers to following

Using information legally ; Giving credit where credit is due ; Not copying others’ work ; Doing research honestly ; Being ethical overall

Next , what is  “Generative AI”, Wikipedia defines it as  a “ artificial intelligence capable of generating text, images, videos, or other data using generative models, often in response to prompts.^”

Having understood the term it will now be realized the challenges that such an evolution bring to maintain academic integrity.

Does developments in technology not good?

Emerging technologies are always a boon to the society as they bring development and ease our lives. The impact of technology must be easing the task without degrading our intelligence. Evolving technologies should make us more smarter and help us to engage in more productive thing. Any automation not only refrain us from doing mundane task but also help to use our energy and time in more productive ideas. Any invention that add value to our work is assumed to contribute a positive impact on the society, like generative AI is providing to many professionals in their domain in various aspects.

So what’s wrong if the college or university students become exorbitant with the evolving technology like generative AI?

It is observed that now students are excessively  using  AI tools such as ChatGPT to complete their assignments, projects, homeworks etc.

Like we always says that there is no shortcut for success, in today’s scenarios using these tools is very similar to adapting shortcuts for accomplishing any task. In academic learning the true learning experience is observed when student does his project/ assignment by utilizing all his understanding of the topic but such tools abstain to develop their logical and cognitive thinking which is the key component of someone learning.  It is observed that such AI tools provides them generally higher-level view of any things, Excessive use and high adoption of such case results in student losing their interest to develop deeper understanding of the problem, its promotes to adapt a quicker solution without understanding the core details.

How does it impact

Job crisis has been problem in huge country like India and everywhere with large population. One of the prominent reasons for this crisis is not because of lack of job but lack of skills for doing jobs. Tools are good to be used only by skilled people to save their time and helping to become more productive. Moreover, these tools are not fully reliable, so the knowledge in your area make you capable to identify and rectify the errors otherwise one without the absolute understanding of the domain one can slowly depend on them.

What to do? Should such thing be banned?

To address this, some institutions advocate of using AI detection tools. But integrating Turnitin and other plagiarism tool to check academic-integrity is not feasible as it involves good budget for its implementation. It would be better if institutions rather than relying on such tool, focus on to identify some more authentic assessment technique where requires more analytical or cognitive thinking where these intelligent tools fails to immediately help the students. It is to keep in mind still these LLM models are not yet complete in deducing all sort of queries.

It means we need to stop traditional way of assessment and focusing on tasks that require students to apply their knowledge and skills in real-world scenarios.

In other way, these tool to be used smartly by instructors to develop authentic and innovative assessments, AI can actually be helpful here by freeing up instructors’ time through tools that automate administrative tasks.

 What to do at institutional level

There is an immense need to develop basic training programs and policies to teach academic ethics within the students at the school level, so that when they grow, they will use such tool keeping the academic integrity intact. Government programs such as for ATAL Innovation Mission, an initiative of NITI Aayog, it’s a Govt. of India project to create a pool of talent is an excellent initiative in this direction, the program makes the young students future ready, teaching them basics ethics by introducing and exposing young innovators to essential world skills; to get them to think out of the box, and break boundaries—and make something unique in the process. I witnessed the positive impact of this scheme as my association as a Mentor of Change (MoC) since 2021.

Finding more solutions to identify and address such challenge is crucial for maintaining integrity in the digital age.

Ashish Seth