Can a uni reliably say someone has used ai to create their work?

[Unissss]

i personally don’t see how tbh

Isn’t Grammarly just AI but its job is to do spelling and grammar? If all you’re asking Gemini/ Chat CPT to do is check SPAG what’s the difference?

I'm a uni lecturer in the humanities. First of all, nobody is suggesting that students and academics shouldn't use AI at all. It's a powerful tool with a lot to offer. For example, as someone who is very experienced in writing academic articles, I use it a lot, to help get me started in rephrasing an awkward sentence, or to check the flow of an article I'm writing - most importantly, with my oversight at every stage, both to write good accurate prompts and to evaluate the output and to use it as a stage in the process of writing, not just a copy paste. Generally speaking as long as the task is about the writing itself and not about the content, it can be very helpful or a number of tasks, and I just spent a couple of hours showing a PhD student how to use it for some of the tasks that she would have paid a human editor to do less well a few years back. It's also concretely helped me to write more efficiently by helping me to organize research projects.

However. The problem with many (actually most) weaker students is that they see AI as a solution for everything. They don't realise the difference between form and content, and just cut and paste anything that AI offers them, because it "looks" convincing, even though the content is repetitive and shallow BS.

I now automatically use AI to check almost all undergraduate work for signs of AI generation - I work with the AI to make a good prompt that looks at a number of different parameters, and if the AI use is egregious, I also use the AI to write a response, which frankly saves me from spending ten times as long marking the work as the student spent writing it.

Unlike copy paste from Wikipedia which was the equivalent of AI BS ten years ago, now it's harder to take students to the disciplinary committee because it's difficult to prove AI use. However, if they really didn't do the work themselves, the quality is usually so low that that is enough that they won't pass, and I write extensive feedback pointing out how shallow their work is.

More pressing is the need for training for students so they understand how to do intellectual work in an environment where AI is a fact of life.

Detectable or not now, I suspect that AI tools will get better and less detectable.

But the only sure fire way to circumvent it will be to do all of the work in exam conditions. Most GCSE content is already far less coursework than it was in the 90s. (I doubt that was forward thinking and more likely the last government believing exams are a true test but considering the rise of AI, I can't see it now reverting.)

Perhaps the only solution is for unis to go the same way?

We are definitely going the same way...

It is far less sophisticated than Chat GPT/ Gemini and universities are happy for students to use it.

If OP is being picked up on using AI then something has obviously gone wrong with 'only' asking Chat GPT to check spelling.

Grammarly is more reliable and it's what it was actually made for.

I wrote an essay and it was flagged as "100%AI generated". I hadn't gone near any AI. I am a lawyer, and I expect my writing style just must have hit some triggers.

But it felt Kafkaesque as I realised I had no way to prove I didn't use AI.

Thankfully the university reversed the decision when I appealed. But it was a horrific experience

We need to be incredibly careful of assuming we can tell/a filter will be right

Part of me thinks it's time for all essays to be written in an exam room

What does "check for speeding" mean? (Apologies if its obvious, English isnt my first language). Does if re-phrase what you had written?

Can you go in and explain and show the version you have written yourself?

I expect she meant spelling

Apparently they can run your work through AI, and it tells them if it was created through AI!

It's nothing to do with checkers. AI blares off the page. It's not nuanced, it's not subtle, it's obvious. Once a person has repeated interaction with AI writing they'll recognise it immediately as it's the same patterns over and over, completely devoid of any evident thought process.

I had been using it for applications I have to write, and for creating short in depth summaries of work. But I've recently realised just how limited it's capabilities are and that once you move past how 'clever' what it writes seems on the surface, you start to see not just the sameyness of the writing, but that it often fails to write something that actually means anything.

Using certain spellcheckers like Grammarly will flag your work for AI yes.

And yet my work was labelled as 100% AI when it wasn't

(Admittedly on review they reversed the decision but it is was the most sickening experience)

I’m curious as to why your thinking is can they prove it rather than I’m outraged this is even being suggested…
When your uni raised this with you, did they not advise you of procedure? Can you not google your uni and plagiarism to find out the process of it feels unclear?

Reach out to your programme director and or student wellbeing team who can support you through the process.

Not reliably at all, my tutor last year flagged two of my assignments, but I had all my hand written notes. It was because I write in a formulaic way. Sent photos of all my plans and first drafts etc as evidence.
At the time I was quite naive about AI and actually thought it was just for creating images. I had actually asked my tutor how I could usecan image app to write my assignment, my mind was blown with it all.

Right. What did you put your text into exactly? Grammarly? ChatGPT or similar? Did it tell you that the text was 100% perfect and you submitted it unchanged, or did it make changes? What kind of changes did it make?

Just admit to your uni that you used AI for spelling and gramnar. Get the version you put into AI and instead correct via MS Word spell and grammar checker. Then hand back in.

What an irony!

As well as various tells (eg em dash, Oxford comma, particular words, various over dramatic sentence structures), they can compare the text from your exams witch the text you have submitted for your essay. Ironically, they do have various tools they can use.

so I wouldn’t risk it. It won’t do you any good anyway as you are there to learn and you won’t learn anything that way

I have to admit I quite like an Oxford comma, and use it regularly. 😜

The drama and the excessive "enthusiasm" in a curiously boring way leaps off the page though. It's very American but long term, I think it will change how we write without AI.

Lol @Lemonthyme

My boss loves it and I can always tell when she's used it in her emails - loads of bullet points and calls to action. No nuance.

Yes. I’ve failed students for using it.

Then she should appeal - universities have a very very hard time in failing students or punishing students over AI usage, because it is very hard to actually prove.

Tell her to appeal to her universities grade-appeals (or whatever term they use) committee, and if she is actually innocent, it is likely they will back down.

When these things go to grade appeal boards it is very hard to justify punishment unless there is concrete proof, which there very rarely is. Yet a lot of students just accept the professors grade and leave it at that.

Also, a warning to those very proud of the em dash method of finding it out:

Make sure that your course or university policy specifically outlaws all AI, otherwise there could be a legitimate reason for them. For example, I've worked with universities where AI is prohibited for writing, but grammar and spelling checking applications are allowed.

Well, these days most grammar and spelling applications are AI powered, and can easily add em dashes when fixing the grammar/punctuation of sentence. That then leaves you in a grey area of whether it is allowed or not.

(Also, students are wising up to this, and can easily ask AI to do another draft removing all em dashes)