this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
368 points (97.2% liked)

Fuck AI

1291 readers
580 users here now

"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"

A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.

founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
 

A Massachusetts couple claims that their son's high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.

An old and powerful force has entered the fraught debate over generative AI in schools: litigious parents angry that their child may not be accepted into a prestigious university.

In what appears to be the first case of its kind, at least in Massachusetts, a couple has sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project. Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments and that the punishment visited upon their son for using an AI tool—he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.

Yeah, I'm 100% with the school on this one.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Etterra@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago

I hope these parents get their legs kicked out from under them. The kid cheated and got caught.

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 11 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Unless the school used one of those ai detection services that are known for giving false positives, I'll side with the school.

[–] settxy@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago

The kid used AI. The lawsuit doesn't argue they didn't and are being unfairly punished. They're arguing that there weren't any rules explicitly saying they couldn't use AI.

Sounds like rich parents mad at the world cuz their kid fucked up. How can they ruin our perfect Billy's life over a decision he made, knowing full well it was wrong!!!! Now he might have to go to a less prestigious college... Boohoo!

[–] Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 7 points 6 hours ago

God, I wish my parents sued my school over being misdiagnosed.

[–] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 16 points 7 hours ago

High-tech fancy plagiarism is still plagiarism.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Way to Streisand Effect the incident for potential universities.

"Our kid will cheat and we'll sue you for calling him out" looks great on a college application.

[–] r4venw@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 hour ago

No no, see, what ivy league colleges will see is "we have 'fuck you' money and we're willing to blow it on our kid's education".

[–] RampantParanoia2365@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago

Article doesn't say if he used AI to wholesale write his paper, which obviously is cheating, or if he used it as a resource like Google. Some details would be nice here.

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 19 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Bad parenting. Not only did they not talk to their kid about what constitutes honourable academic conduct, not only did they not talk to their kid about the pitfalls of using generative AI, especially in an academic context, they are now teaching their brat that the proper response to fucking up is to blame the rules, to blame the school, to blame other people. Bad parents.

I wonder, have these people no shame?

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Should kids use chatgpt to do their assignments, probably not. I think everyone here is looking at this in the wrong way though. If they rules did not state he could not use it, a proper response to me would be to tell the kid to do the project over without using chatgpt on another topic, and update the rules. Instead they did the school equivalent of arresting the student and detaining him (detention), and marked the assignment poorly which impacts his future.

The kid should not have done this.
The school/teacher also should not have done this.

According to the information we have, no rules were broken, so it was an unwarranted punishment.

On a side note your comment is also very "fall in line" thinking. One could argue the parents are standing up for their kid and teaching him how to stand up for himself.

The authorities need to follow written laws and procedures. Otherwise we are just punishing people for being different.

Everyone should be mad at the school because we are having to use taxes to address a situation that a teacher could have addressed long before by just telling the student to do the assignment over.

[–] actually@lemmy.world 1 points 7 minutes ago

I think I don’t have enough details to agree with you.

Lots of variables, some with make the school look good, and/or the kid.

The student might be an angel who used a small bit of gpt, after saving puppies all night ; or a hellion someone finally had enough of, after repeated issues.

The parents may be bad, absolute stereotypes. Or perhaps there is a deeper story here about why they are willing to publicly humiliate themselves ; which most lawyers and/or common sense would have told them ahead of time.

Nobody here knows that much

[–] theacharnian@lemmy.ca 0 points 30 minutes ago

Nah bro, this is common sense for every member of the academic community at all levels.

What's for sure is that schools and universities need to teach students how to responsibly use AI.

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

spoiler


When you put it that way, I would bet good money which party these people are voting for.

[–] djsoren19@yiffit.net 5 points 5 hours ago

Having worked with parents like this before: No. None at all. They'd rather throw thousands of dollars at different attorneys hoping one of them will take the case to teach their children to never have shame.

[–] celsiustimeline@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

hahaha enjoy yours and the schools legal bills, parents.

[–] ptz@dubvee.org 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I would be so pissed if I lived / paid taxes in that school's district and my tax dollars had to pay those legal bills. Would consider suing those parents myself.

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 56 minutes ago (1 children)

If it wasn't in the rules and they punished the kid for it, you should be mad at the school for not updating the rules and asking the kid to do the assignment over on another topic like an adult. Instead they abused their station and wound up wasting our tax dollars.

You don't just detain people because they do something different without first codifying it being wrong. Otherwise we'd have millions of people in jail for putting ketchup on a hotdog.

[–] Cort@lemmy.world 1 points 21 minutes ago (1 children)

The schools I've been to all have academic integrity policies that prohibit students from turning in work that isn't their own. They're all worded broadly enough to encompass generative AI.

This school appears to have added it to their rules after this incident.... So why not just tell the kid to redo the assignment and wipe the detention from his record and be done with it. Instead they are being stubborn and wasting our taxes.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

America and suing for random bullshit, name a more iconic duo

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 24 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

Looks like the handbook does explicitly mention it:

Academic Integrity: Cheating and Plagiarism To cheat is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. In an academic setting, cheating consists of such acts as communicating with other student(s) by talking or writing during a test or quiz; unauthorized use of technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), during an assessment; or any other such action that invalidates the result of the assessment or other assignment. Plagiarism consists of the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author, including Artificial Intelligence, and the representation of such as one’s own work. Plagiarism and cheating in any form are considered disciplinary matters to be addressed by the school. A teacher apprehending one or more students cheating on any graded assignment, quiz or test will record a failing grade for that assignment for each student involved. The teacher will inform the parent(s) of the incident and assistant principal who will add the information to the student’s disciplinary file. The assistant principal may take further action if they deem it warranted. See Code of Discipline.

From https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4900/HHS/4719901/Student_Handbook_Code_Discipline_2024_2025.pdf

[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Apparently they added that after punishing the kid.

A better punishment would have been making him redo the assignment.

Seriously, this was not handled at all well by the teacher.

[–] JackbyDev@programming.dev 8 points 13 hours ago

Did he cite the LLM properly?

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 42 points 20 hours ago (5 children)

They want this kid to get into Stanford?? 🤣🤣🤣

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

Liar, cheater, and lawsuit wielder? Perfect Ivy League material. Thats how political and managerial elites are made from.

[–] riodoro1@lemmy.world 23 points 17 hours ago

He cheats from young. Great ivy shit material. Maybe if he rapes somebody he’ll get to be a supreme court justice.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Passerby6497@lemmy.world 62 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

What fucking snowflakes. When I was a kid, if you had someone write your paper for you, you got a 0 for the assignment. When you go to college, they'll fail you out of the course for that shit (because its cheating).

The only ones harming this kid's future is the parents trying to coddle their kid and protect them from the (rather light) consequences of their actions.

[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 30 points 21 hours ago (8 children)

I taught in Chinese universities for 16 years. Initially I liked it. The students were hard-working and respectful. Parents listened to teacher advice. If kids were caught cheating there was Hell to pay ... from the parents, not just the school.

Over that 16 year period, though, everything changed. Parents started showing up to middle schools whose response to any misconduct was to privately donate red portraits of Chairman Mao to the school administrators and suddenly all records of misconduct went missing. Marks were "reassessed". Leading to universities being flooded by the worst imaginable students who'd never had a negative effect to any shenanigans their entire lives.

Only universities are a different world entirely. It takes a whole lot more red portraits of Chairman Mao to get misconduct erased in university. Way more such portraits than all but the top 0.1% could pay. So these poor kids, having slid by for 12 years of no consequences suddenly get hit square between the eyes with consequences that for the first time in their lives Daddy couldn't erase by waving said red portraits around.

Yes, they were little shits. Yes, I hated them as students. But I still felt bad for them as people because they were made monsters. They weren't born monsters.

Still didn't stop me from quitting teaching, though.

load more comments (8 replies)
[–] ninjabard@lemmy.world 159 points 1 day ago (1 children)

He didn't do the assignment. Those parents can get bent.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] ZDL@ttrpg.network 116 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (13 children)

What would the parents' stance be if he'd asked someone else to write his assignment for him?

Same thing.

Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments

I'll bet you the student handbook doesn't explicitly prohibit taking a shit on his desk, but he'd sure as Hell be disciplined for doing it. This whole YOU DIDN'T EXPLICITLY PROHIBIT THIS SO IT'S FINE!!!111oneoneeleventy! thing that a certain class of people have is, to my mind, a clear sign of sociopathy.

[–] abysmalpoptart@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Someone in the comments claims to have found the school handbook, and it does explicitly say misuse of AI is forbidden

load more comments (12 replies)
[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 83 points 1 day ago (2 children)

"a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools."

No, using AI tools harmed his chances...

[–] PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 10 hours ago

Ehh, the AI did its job as a tool.

The kid harmed his chances by being a tool.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 4 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I can’t really understand why anyone would think that you wouldn’t fail for this. You’re being tested on your ability to do something and having a machine do it for you. At most generous to AI it’s like bringing calculators to an arithmetic class.

[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

Bringing a calculator to math class still requires you to know which formula to use and when. It's not the same as asking an AI to do it all.

load more comments
view more: next ›