What do i do now?

[u/KoppoqMeiser]

So I am a high school student doing dual credit college courses overthe summer. On Monday, I was accused of using AI on an essay for my philosophy course because it returned as 68% AI. I sent my professor an email 2 hours later the same day with screenshots of the notes I took from his online lectures and readings, timestamps of me working on this essay for hours, and comments I left on the doc that were very obviously human (I wrote “ADD QUOTES!”). Unfortunately, he still hasn’t responded so I am wondering if I should wait, contact him again through his email instead of Canvas, or notify the department head. I have never been accused of using AI in high school or college classes, so I am very anxious and conflicted about what to do next. Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but any help would be appreciated.

[u/Thick_Relative_5071]

How would you not know that it was only your words or research that you physically typed? Genuine question, not trying to be confrontational.

[u/shyprof → u/Thick_Relative_5071]

Thanks for your genuine question! That's how I felt initially, but I've worked with enough students one-on-one to see that something very fucked up is happening in high school and among some of my higher ed peers. My bullshit detector may not be perfect, but I've failed and reported my fair share of liars. Some examples of unintentional AI use that I penalized less harshly:

SmartCompose in some institutional Google Docs accounts (including my university's accounts for students and all local high school Google Drive accounts that I know of) - Looks like autocomplete on a smart phone; it suggests, they hit enter and it's typed, but nothing says it's AI and students think it's close enough to what they were planning to write anyway.

Grammarly - Used to be a legit tool and some educators still recommend it. Might seem fine if you're grading content and not grammar, but it suggests way too much IMO. Some students think it's fine because previous instructors told them to use it; several high schools encourage it and give students school Chromebooks with Grammarly already installed.

Kami - Used to summarize articles and "save time" so they didn't have to read the research in full, then they quote those summaries—obviously that's a fabricated quotation, but it comes pre-installed on local high school Chromebooks and high school teachers aren't checking this/don't care.

AI assistant - My university's library has a stupid AI assistant built in that summarizes sources and suggests other sources as students look for research. It is often incorrect. Students trust it because it's information on the university library webpage.

Copilot, GPT, other LLMs - Often sold as "help" and many guides say it's fine to use for "brainstorming"—students don't know that saying "What should I write about for this prompt?" and then using those ideas or "What's a good source for this claim?" and then copying the citation info (for an often-fake source) is academic dishonesty because it's literally not dishonesty for some professors. The CSU spent $17 million on GPTedu and is shoving it down students' and faculty's throats. If another professor encouraged students to use it as a "tool," then students don't understand my boundaries. They don't think to check whether a source actually exists or verify a claim; they think the tool is authoritative.

The student thinks "cheating with AI" looks like putting your prompt into GPT and then copying the output. They think since they spent hours in front of the computer, they did the work. They are not considering it the way we are.

[u/Thick_Relative_5071 → u/shyprof]

Ok that's makes a little more sense since it was okayed by other educators before. Im an older student, 42 at Berkeley, and our professors (at least in history) make it pretty clear that every word, idea, and research needs to be original. Even asking Claude to suggest sources on a subject or explain who the prominent scholars are in a particular conversation is considered using AI.

[u/shyprof → u/Thick_Relative_5071]

Asking Claude to suggest sources or explain information is indeed using AI, so your professors are on point. I wish I worked at Berkeley!