The Staggering Misuse of GenAI: Reshaping the Ethical Framework

Are you guilty of copy-pasting ChatGPT or any other AI platform for your school work? Do you know anyone who is a victim of such actions? A survey by GovTech found that 50% of teachers knew at least one student who was punished or faced negative consequences for using ChatGPT to do their assignments (Nerdynav, 2024)

Based on the unimaginable growth of AI technology over the recent years, schools must implement and teach GenAI awareness in order to inform students on the proper use of GenAI. GenAI literacy will help foster an enhanced sense of community within classrooms and an improved learning ability for students to use GenAI appropriately in different contexts in and out of school as well as educate them on different tools in which they can maximize in honing their education and abilities (WMU, 2024). Through this approach, teachers and students will also be able to work together as they are ready to adapt their approaches to the growing amount of AI tools, and students will be able to use these tools to strengthen and support their outputs the right way, while also approaching this novel intelligence from a critical perspective. 

“72% of college professors who are aware of ChatGPT are concerned about its impact on cheating,” and “48% of students admitted to using ChatGPT for an at-home test or quiz, 53% had it write an essay and 22% had it write an outline for a paper.” (Forbes, 2023) The ethical disciplinary actions of students must be evaluated and reinforced in order to avoid academic dishonesty and improper use of AI. Although the use of GenAI has been created to aid us humans in creating and innovating ideas that are out of our capabilities, the amount of cases regarding students’ academic dishonesty with the use of AI raises concerns about their over-dependence on this tool which could greatly hinder their ability to think and create for themselves without the proper balance of AI use. Ethical awareness is crucial for responsible assimilation into education, and ensuring the ethical state of students is crucial for the future generation of thinkers and workers of our society.

With AI being a new and niche tool at everyone’s disposal, the research and development of AI knowledge is a must when facing this novel artificial intelligence. Teachers can use AI to develop personalized lesson plans and exams that take into account the individual strengths and weaknesses of each student—which can improve student engagement and motivation. Students can use AI to enhance learning experiences that are personally focused on strengthening their weaknesses in their studies (Stanford University, 2023). AI can also help create creative and fun activities that would better encourage students to learn and participate, as well as, help teachers in making lessons and automatically checking/grading student assessments in the long run.