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School did nothing wrong when it punished student for using AI, court rules (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Student "indiscriminately copied and pasted text," including AI hallucinations.

A federal court yesterday ruled against parents who sued a Massachusetts school district for punishing their son who used an artificial intelligence tool to complete an assignment.

Dale and Jennifer Harris sued Hingham High School officials and the School Committee and sought a preliminary injunction requiring the school to change their son's grade and expunge the incident from his disciplinary record before he needs to submit college applications. The parents argued that there was no rule against using AI in the student handbook, but school officials said the student violated multiple policies.

The Harris' motion for an injunction was rejected in an order issued yesterday from US District Court for the District of Massachusetts. US Magistrate Judge Paul Levenson found that school officials "have the better of the argument on both the facts and the law."

"On the facts, there is nothing in the preliminary factual record to suggest that HHS officials were hasty in concluding that RNH [the Harris' son, referred to by his initials] had cheated," Levenson wrote. "Nor were the consequences Defendants imposed so heavy-handed as to exceed Defendants' considerable discretion in such matters."

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It was explicitly against the rules.

But even if it somehow weren't, it's literally impossible for it to not be cheating. Anything that isn't your own words is plagiarism.

[–] ITGuyLevi 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Where was it against the rules and do you have proof beyond the weak assumptions made in the article? Aside from sources that didn't exist, or citing their use of Grammerly (oh shit, I should cite MS word too because it suggested a synonym so my paper would be more 'concise' lol), I'm not seeing much proof. The teachers testimony was largely based on the fact one AI said the other paper had portions of AI generated content, and her feeling like 52 minutes on the final paper isn't enough. I spend way less than 52 minutes on my final drafts because it was largely just copying/pasting shit from my rough drafts and maybe deciding to reword.

At the end of the day though, we are all making some leaps in our judgement. Allowing the use of AI at the school, then getting pissed at some bs being submitted is like allowing students to use calculators then blaming the student for not being able to show their long division.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The case has been posted all over for weeks, and multiple cited the district policy against AI.

It is literally impossible for using an LLM to write a portion of a paper not to constitute plagiarism. There is no exception. You didn't write it if an AI did.

LLMs should not be allowed anywhere near a school. Using a calculator in an arithmetic class is absolutely comparable, though, for the exact opposite of the argument you're making. The entire purpose is to learn to execute the math so you understand the math. If you can't do it without a calculator, you did not learn the material. Using a calculator in a class that doesn't allow them is cheating for a reason.

[–] ITGuyLevi 1 points 1 month ago

I totally apologize if I've caused you some distress with my views and words. After reading through the article, I didn't see any rule listed. Could there be one, sure why not, I didn't see it and my attention got pulled away by the teachers 'feeling' being quoted as holding so much weight in what should have been an open/shut case of 'is X prohibited from being used?/Was that communicated properly?/Was it understood?'

If my words offend or frustrate, I truly apologize and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!