1 week Ago
Countless reports over the past few years have highlighted how the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has rocked the academic world, with numerous allegations that students have been “cheating” using the technology. News outlets such as Forbes , The Atlantic , the BBC, and The Wall Street Journal have explored the impact of AI on education, with publications like The Washington Post describing it as “an existential threat to colleges”, while The Guardian reports that universities are facing an “AI cheating crisis”. Recent cases include an incident where a PhD student at the University of Minnesota in the United States was expelled over his alleged use of AI during an exam, as reported by Gizmodo.
Another separate case saw the expulsion of 10 students from Lithuania’s Vilnius University for failing to disclose their AI use, making it clear that the use of the technology in academia remains a touchy and uncertain affair. Despite similarly considering the use of the technology as “cheating”, those like Kuala Lumpur-based university student Rob (not his real name) have come to increasingly rely on the technology. “From my perspective, I feel like it is a cheating tool.
Because you’re not necessarily putting in any extra hard work or effort, and you’re getting the answer in a very easy way,” he says. In his experience, Rob says he largely turns to AI when he feels stuck during his studies, especially on particularly complex questions that require careful reading of his lecture notes to understand and answer. “I usually just take these points generated by AI and put a bit of my own spin on the answer, so that it’s still a mix of something that is original,” he says.
Another KL-based student at the same university who asked to be quoted as just Vill says that she treats AI chatbots as a brainstorming tool, rather than just plucking ideas directly for her coursework. According to Vill, the chat window helps with organising her thoughts: “I usually already have an idea about what I want to do for my assignment, so I just type all my ideas in ChatGPT, and then it will help me structure things out in point format,” she says. Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by large language models (LLMs) trained on massive sets of existing data in the form of text and mimic human responses based on patterns and context.
Partner or problem? For Penang-based IT student Foo, who asked to be quoted only by his last name, AI serves as a sanity check when it comes to the work that he has already personally done. “I rely on AI to help me verify my answers and working solutions to mathematics problems. “I also use it to provide various solutions to programming and mathematics problems and to explain the rationale behind the solutions for my understanding,” he says.
All of them agree that the main reason that they use AI is due to the amount of time it saves them. Students also need to develop their own knowledge and understanding of the subject matter before relying on AI tools, especially since chatbot-generated information is not always accurate. — Pixabay Vill and Rob have an average of five to six subjects per semester, with the additional leeway allowing them to take up part-time jobs, participate in extracurricular and volunteer activities, and better manage their stress levels.
Design lecturer and tutor at a local university, Venese Rengasamy, believes this cuts down the time needed for surface-level research, allowing students to focus more on key subjects like their final year project. He does acknowledge that AI’s easy availability is making some students too dependent on the technology. “It can definitely help students learn certain skills faster, but a part of me feels that relying on AI has resulted in learners skipping certain steps that are essential in grasping crucial aspects in their respective fields of studies,” he says.
“I think the students should be worried about this if they continue to rely heavily on AI software and platforms. “Ultimately they should focus on the fundamentals and foundational skills and then only use AI as a tool that can help elevate their skills. They should not be using AI purely to create the finished product,” he adds.
Students also need to develop their own knowledge and understanding of the subject matter before relying on such tools, especially since chatbot-generated information is not always accurate. This is due to a phenomenon known as hallucinations, where AI generates false or misleading information that appears credible but is not in fact based on reality, and can vary from mild inaccuracies to things that are completely untrue. “This is where you need to have your own knowledge on the subject,” says Rob, “because I think the people that would fall for this type of trap are those who just blatantly use AI without any actual knowledge on the subject.
“So I think it’s still important for us to have a base knowledge on that subject so we won’t have this type of issue. There’s still an aspect of responsibility there as a student.” Rob adds that it can be challenging to stay completely focused during long lectures, so AI tools that summarise key points have been especially helpful for him.
Vill similarly points out that having a fundamental understanding of the subject will also allow students to critically assess AI-generated content and use the technology to uncover different points they may have overlooked. While there has been a shift towards integrating AI in education, with courses on prompt engineering and even faculties and courses dedicated to the technology in the works in Malaysia, both Vill and Rob say that their university has not been active in guiding students on how they should be using AI. This contradictory approach to the technology is giving students mixed messages as to whether they should be using the technology in their coursework.
However this does not appear to be uniform across institutions of tertiary education, with Foo sharing that his university has guidelines in place when it comes to AI use. “Many of my lecturers have accepted that AI is not going anywhere and there is no way for them to restrict the use of AI, so they encourage healthy and proper use of AI rather than restricting its use entirely,” he says, adding that it can also serve as valuable reference material when it comes to mathematics. The technology can also serve to cover blind spots in student knowledge when it is properly used, according to Venese, who adds that students with weaker language skills tend to use it to understand the coursework and thus better convey their thoughts in assignments and so on.
“I encourage my students to use AI as a tool, which should be used in the early stages of their work as inspiration. “There is also a good application of AI in the workflow of a motion designer. For example, AI can help write expressions, which are lines of codes, that generate specific desired effects in Adobe After Effects.
“Sure, the students can learn to code and create these expressions themselves, but they are not inherently computer science students nor coders, so that helps facilitate their workflow in projects,” he says. Artificially intelligent Foo says that while he would be able to complete his studies without AI, it would be much harder for him, mainly due to how challenging it is to digest the wealth of information available online and from classes. “I feel that AI has made it incredibly quick and easy to gather information for any topic and condense it into an easy to read format.
I only have to do information gathering the old way when it’s for an obscure topic,” he says. He does acknowledge that it can often be incorrect, thus requiring that he develop skills in prompt engineering and perform plenty of fact checks through other trusted sources to make sure that the information he receives is reliable. From Venese’s observation, he notes that some students are making better use of the technology than others, and expects that learning how to “talk” to AI assistants to extract the desired result is becoming a crucial skill.
News outlets such as Forbes, The Atlantic, the BBC, and The Wall Street Journal have explored the impact of AI on education, with publications like The Washington Post describing it as “an existential threat to colleges”, while The Guardian reports that universities are facing an “AI cheating crisis”. — Pixabay Having undergone university life both before and after the widespread availability of AI, Foo says he sees it as a valuable teammate, especially since it helps mitigate the burden of freeloaders – namely students who do not contribute to group coursework. “In the past, we would have to pick up the slack for these people, which made it difficult to pay attention to our other subjects and keep our grades up.
“At least now we have a sort of replacement when we know that a group member is not capable of delivering their part, or hands us something that is just plain not good quality work,” he says. This raises the concern that freeloaders may potentially benefit from the technology and get what is essentially a free pass thanks to their use of AI, in turn diluting the value of a certain diploma or degree when they graduate. Other students remain relatively unbothered by this possibility, mainly due to areas such as exams and individual assignments where using the technology will not be enough to save the freeloaders.
From Rob’s perspective, the main thing to keep in mind is making sure that individual students are able to produce and deliver good work even without utilising AI. “I think, seeing people that rely so heavily on AI, it really gives them a reputation of being lazy. It’s the image of someone that doesn’t really care about their work, and just wants to get things done.
“It’s safe to say that most students at a university level use AI, so I wouldn’t say it’s shameful to admit that we use it. But when your whole work revolves around AI, that’s where the line should be drawn,” he says. According to Vill, such students are easy to spot for lecturers, since they have a tendency to directly copy and paste AI-generated content without any changes whatsoever, which is noticeable.
She further stresses that the technology has to be used wisely, especially since at the end of the day, students are paying for their education and are coming to class to learn. “If you know what you’re doing, then okay. But, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you just want to get things done faster, then I think you have to start thinking more by yourself first,” she says.
.
