I didn’t think I would need to say this, but if you’re going to cheat, at least remove the prompt.

In one of the microbiology courses I adjunct, the students have to write a lab report. I’m a pretty easy grader, as long as they have all the right sections and are talking about the topic, I give full points. I also know a lot of people are using AI (a downside of my new full time job is that I’m expected to be a supporter of it), and the university I adjunct for doesn’t like faculty to try and prove a student used AI to cheat.

So, here I am, skimming a paper, and I get to the conclusion. It looks like this:

Conclusion

Here’s a version that sounds more personal and incorporates the limitations you observed without sounding overly formal.

The objective of this lab…

***

At least it made grading easy. I removed the points I had given so far in the rubric, changed it to 0, and in the comments I said: “As evidenced by the first sentence in your conclusion, AI was used to write the report and results in an automatic zero. Further instances will result in reporting academic misconduct.”

The student didn’t reach out to argue the point.

I’ve learned that students who are wrongfully accused of AI use will reach out, quite indignantly (I’m one of them). But students who get caught using it don’t reach out. Especially when they left the prompt in the assignment.

I mean, if you’re going to cheat, that’s your prerogative. If you would rather have AI write a paper for you, that’s your choice. If you don’t want to do any work in the class that you are paying hundreds of dollars for, that’s your decision. But it should be common sense to at least read through what AI is writing for you. You should also double check that you remove blatant evidence of AI use, like a prompt or part of the AI’s response. Even a quick skim of the paper would have caught this! I’ve already written about how I find using AI to be taking the easy way out – God gave you a brain, use it!

The only thing that I will admit AI is useful for is using it as a beefy search engine. It does a much better job of scouring the whole internet if you’re looking for a specific source/topic. I had to write a paper with 20 sources on a niche topic and the sources all had to be written in the last five years. I could have spent hours searching, but I did use AI for this. It still got about 30% of the sources incorrect, but that’s why you double check anything AI tells you. If you are using it to create your assignments or your work for you, then why even bother going to school? Why does your boss even pay you if AI can do your job? I won’t even get into how AI is eliminating jobs and how it is destroying our environment – that can be a post for later down the road.

It’s just baffling to me how people will have AI write their assignment and then submit it, without double checking for errors. If you’re going to cheat – at least remove the prompt. She would have gotten full points because my university doesn’t want me to point out that I can tell you used AI, unless it’s literally spelled out for me in the paper.

But there’s one thing I can promise for Back to Stable Hill. I will never use AI to draft, generate, compose, or design any part of this blog. Although some people may question it, I do have a brain, and I will use it. I have ideas and creativity and topics I like to debate. I don’t need artificial intelligence to do that for me. The only piece of AI generated content on this blog is the quote of what it described Back to Stable Hill as in this post. Other than that, there will be no AI involved in this blog, and in a world where it’s getting harder to discern what is real and what is not, I promise that Back to Stable Hill will always be a real person’s (my) thoughts on life, college, and Christianity.

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”

– Ecclesiastes 9:10, King James Version

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