TRINITY College wants its students to use AI and Gen AI to write their essays for them – as long as they don’t try to pass it off as their own.
University chiefs keen to mould the workforce of the very near future have issued AI guidelines after admitting is is “impossible to ban their use”.
It means students can use the likes of Chat GPT to generate text and words in their projects with the college’s blessing once they credit the machines for it.
As a result, work counting for a sizeable portion of a person’s final grade can lean heavily on the output of machine learning.
A source said: “It’s the future, a future where people don’t have to use their brains as much.”
A college statement on AI and Gen AI reads: “Where the output of GenAI is used in a document or work output, this usage should be acknowledged and appropriately cited.
“Where GenAI content is used verbatim (e.g., in the form of unedited text or image), this should be accompanied by a full citation, with text-based content included in quotation marks.”
However it’s not a free-for-all, as anyone seen to be overdoing it might be seen in a poor light.
It tells students: “Note any long verbatim quotation (eg more than one paragraph), even with citation, may be considered inappropriate or poor practice in student assessment documents and publications.”
They could also be done for plagiarism if passing it off without due credit.
In its advice to staff it says: “GenAI will be used by students, researchers and staff. Given the ubiquity of GenAI tools within everyday devices and platforms, it is impossible to ban their use.
“From an academic integrity perspective, if a student generates content from a GenAI tool and submits it as his/her/their own work, it is considered plagiarism, which is defined as academic misconduct.
“If a sentence or quotation from GenAI content is used by a student in their academic work, it must be referenced.”
A spokesperson for Trinity College said the new appreoach is not a blanket go-ahead for students to use AI as there are new guidelines and caveats.
Trinity College’s new AI policy requires students and staff to fact check information generated by Gen AI and to seek out the primary source of the information – such as research papers or publications.
The College also highlights that any student that generates content from an AI tool and submits it as his or her work, it will be considered plagarism.
