{"id":59519,"date":"2025-08-11T16:02:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T16:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59519\/"},"modified":"2025-08-11T16:02:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T16:02:15","slug":"if-theres-no-escaping-ai-should-students-even-try","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/59519\/","title":{"rendered":"If there\u2019s no escaping AI, should students even try?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you listen to the optimists, you\u2019ll hear that artificial intelligence will give everyone a free friend, therapist or even doctor. <\/p>\n

But unlike the search engines that came before, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT can also produce highly customised answers to nuanced and specific questions. For all of the possible benefits, the \u201cexpert in your pocket\u201d is therefore also a huge problem for academic integrity. <\/p>\n

Almost nine out of ten undergraduates already use AI to help on their assessments, a survey found this year, while a 2024 study revealed that, on average, chatbots received higher grades than real undergraduates. With LLM-detectors widely seen as unfit for purpose, many therefore suspect cheating is now rife<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some pedagogists believe pen-and-paper tests, like GCSE exams, are the only credible way to ensure students still learn the content. Others, however, think coursework and at-home exams remain crucial to encourage responsible AI use. <\/p>\n

\u2022 AI cheating surges at universities<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI am certain that most of my students use LLMs at some point to solve coding problems,\u201d Professor Stephane Wolton says. \u201cBut for me that is fine because in their real job they are going to use it too. Why would I forbid them from doing something they are going to do later?\u201d <\/p>\n

Wolton, who teaches political science at the London School of Economics (LSE), is among the first professors in the country to experiment with an innovative assessment design \u2014 one that he thinks will likely catch on.<\/p>\n

For the final quarter of their grade, his students produce a short essay using an LLM. They are not assessed on the quality of that answer but instead on a justification of their prompts and a 1,000-word critique of the response. <\/p>\n

\"Professor<\/p>\n

Professor Stephane Wolton<\/p>\n

TOMMASO CUTRI<\/p>\n

This year Wolton asked postgraduates to see what a chatbot had to say about the claim that \u201conly a strong autocratic regime\u201d could effectively tackle climate change. The marks, he says, were for explaining how and why the AI answer was unsatisfactory. <\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is saying it\u2019s a revolution and I tend to believe that you cannot fight progress. I don\u2019t want us to be Luddites but to actually embrace this thing,\u201d Wolton says. \u201cWe don\u2019t know exactly how LLMs are going to be used in future, but they are going to be used \u2014 I want my students to have a headstart.\u201d <\/p>\n

Wolton says that in-person exams remain important to check students learn the core concepts, but, drawing a comparison with the early internet era, he adds that it is also crucial to teach students to think critically about AI-generation. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrom a pedagogical perspective this is quite important. My goal is to get them to use this tool intelligently. I was surprised by how many students, probably two thirds, didn\u2019t think properly about how to use these tools,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not changing the philosophy, it\u2019s changing what this philosophy is applied to.\u201d <\/p>\n

Most students appreciated his novel assessment method, according to Sophia Moore, an undergraduate who took one of his classes. \u201cIt actually engages with the role of AI in academia instead of simply ignoring it,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe way we write, think and learn is changing, as do the expectations in the job market \u2014 assessments should change too,\u201d agrees Valeria Schell, a postgraduate student. \u201cThe traditional model of cramming facts, writing them out under time pressure, and then forgetting it all a week later feels outdated.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Two<\/p>\n

Valeria Schell and Sofia Moore, former students at LSE, discuss how they used AI to help them with their degree<\/p>\n

JOSHUA BRATT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n

Schell was especially frustrated at classes that, in her view, had ignored the technological improvements of the past few years. \u201cRight now, students are often already using AI \u2014 just quietly. So instead of rewarding those who break the rules, do it skilfully and hide it well, why not make it part of the assignment?\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

Professor Christopher Tucci, who teaches digital strategy and innovation at Imperial College London, also updated his course shortly after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022. <\/p>\n

Seeing how a colleague generated a book draft using an LLM, Tucci was convinced that bot-generated content wasn\u2019t going anywhere. Students will need to understand their strengths and weaknesses in the real world, he argues, meaning they should be included at university. <\/p>\n

An outright ban is \u201ca ship that sailed a long time ago\u201d, he adds. \u201cThe most honest ones are not going to use it but everyone else is. That\u2019s going to put incredible pressure on them because it will be difficult to keep up.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, others push back against integrating AI into student assessments by pointing to potential drawbacks. <\/p>\n

\u2022 \u2018An existential crisis\u2019: can universities survive ChatGPT?<\/a><\/p>\n

Despite using LLMs to help with translation and debugging code, Angelo Pirrone, a psychology lecturer at the University of Liverpool, doesn\u2019t think academics outside of computer science should use valuable classroom time teaching their use. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t buy into the idea that we should embrace whatever innovation comes our way. It seems to me that students are getting worse by the year so old school teaching and learning \u2014 reading, writing, having conversations \u2014 goes a long way,\u201d Pirrone says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel we could have students engage with much better material. Should we succumb as a consequence of endemic cheating to this type of AI-centred learning? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some students on Wolton\u2019s course privately agree. One, speaking anonymously, expresses frustration that they had spent hours researching LLM techniques rather than political economy. <\/p>\n

Even Wolton himself cautions that time would run out for his method if the models become good enough to convincingly critique themselves. But the future is \u201cfrightening and exciting\u201d, he believes \u2014 so perhaps we should try to keep up.<\/p>\n

Good University Guide 2025 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you listen to the optimists, you\u2019ll hear that artificial intelligence will give everyone a free friend, therapist…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-59519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}