A new study conducted at Yale University sparks a debate about the impact of artificial intelligence on higher education.
Anya Geist November 18, 2024 1:20am
Maria Arozamena, illustration editor
Research shows that readers have a hard time telling the difference between essays created by humans and essays created by artificial intelligence.
In the project, organized by four researchers, including three from the School of Medicine, the researchers provided readers with 34 essays, 22 of which were written by humans and 12 generated by artificial intelligence. I ordered a blind review. Typically, they rated the organization and structure of AI-generated essays more highly. However, if you believe that an essay was generated by an AI, you are less likely to rank it as one of the best overall essays.
In the end, readers were only able to correctly distinguish between AI and human essays 50% of the time, raising questions about the role of AI in academia and education.
“How do we know if a paper is supported by generative AI other than what the authors say?” said Dr. Lee Schwamm, Associate Dean for Digital Strategy and Transformation at the School of Medicine. I am.
Schwamm, a researcher at the School of Medicine, was part of the team that conducted the research project.
Given the growing popularity of generative AI, Schwamm was interested in how similar it was to human work. Although the project’s readers could not effectively distinguish between AI and human writing, Schwam and his colleagues noticed some unique characteristics.
“A human essay is very different from an AI essay,” Schwam said. “AI essays are very predictable and internally consistent in terms of sentence structure, the types of words they use, and the tone they adopt.”
According to Schwamm, AI writing will inevitably become a part of today’s world, and the role of AI in society is debatable.
Schwamm believes that the combination of AI and human thinking could be useful and create more desirable products in many aspects of life.
“We have to decide whether we think there’s a new playing field,” Schwam said. “Where should we incorporate AI?”
Generative AI is already being incorporated into Yale education.
Economics professor Tolga Coker is incorporating generative AI into her introductory microeconomics class. He asks one essay question in advance for the midterm and final exams, and students can use AI to create an answer.
During this semester’s midterm exam, Professor Coker asked students how they could use economic concepts such as the representation heuristic and framing to succeed in their dream jobs.
“It’s better to teach students new technology so they’re ready when they graduate,” Coker said.
Coker said it makes no sense to ignore technology as it advances and will continue to impact students’ lives. But AI can’t do everything for students, Coker said.
Coker also doesn’t think AI will inherently make students lazy.
There is ” [still] It’s a competition between students,” Coker said. “Those who make good use of AI will be a little ahead of the curve.”
However, some educators do not believe that AI will play a role in education.
Biology instructor Amarea Hartman believes AI has a limited role in the classroom.
Hartman said students cannot use AI to fabricate experiment results. You will need to do the work yourself to complete the lab report.
“I simply acknowledge that AI tools exist and should be used responsibly,” Hartman wrote in the News. “You can use it not just to do homework, but to slim down your original text to meet character limits or to communicate more effectively.”
Hartman wants students to be aware of the dangers of AI.
Hartman said if students misuse AI, their academic performance could decline, making education less meaningful.
“I want my students to fear more than getting caught,” Hartman wrote. “[They need to be aware of] The temptation is to let AI do the thinking and not let it learn for itself. ”
According to Yale University, inserting AI-generated text into an assignment without proper attribution is a violation of academic integrity.
