Forest Country News

The vastly popular ChatGPT platform has emerged as a godsend for college students and a bane for professors, one of which in East Texas claimed his class used on their assignments, according to various media reports. 

Dr. Jared Mumm, a professor in Texas A&M University at Commerce’s (TAMUC) Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources Department, sent an email to his students alleging they employed artificial intelligence (AI) to write their essays and threatened to fail them if his suspicions were confirmed.

The Hill reported that Mumm misspelled ChatGPT several times in the correspondence, but nonetheless informed the class he would issue each and every student an incomplete.

He purportedly told a student that he won’t grade “ChatGPT [expletive]” though – per The Hill – the platform doesn’t have the capability to determine if it actually wrote an essay.

TAMUC said that the students haven’t flunked or have been prohibited from graduating, but at least one student confessed to occasionally using ChatGPT for their coursework.

“Jared Mumm, the class professor, is working individually with students regarding their last written assignments,” university officials said in a statement obtained by The Hill. “Some students received a temporary grade of ‘X’ — which indicates ‘incomplete’ — to allow the professor and students time to determine whether AI was used to write their assignments and, if so, at what level.”

Per TAMUC, it’s crafting policies that focus on “the use or misuse of AI technology.” 

Lone Star Standard reported that colleges and universities across the State of Texas are attempting to coexist with the technology while harboring concerns it could further shirk academic integrity. 

Reactions to AI’s emergence in academia are mixed, with some professors believing it further promotes cheating and plagiarism, while others see it as a type of innovation no different from the word processor or the Internet, according to the publication.