David Bradnick

@DonaldClark @Steve_R_Price Absolutely!

@bradnick_d @Steve_R_Price It would seem your specialist subjects border on the bizarre.

Imagine back in the heyday of online essay mills, if the push had been to teach students to use essay mills ethically and to develop essay mill strategies. Or if we had accepted that essay mills were okay for grammar and organization but taught Ss to make the essays their own.

@DonaldClark @Steve_R_Price No. Seems that you make hasty conclusions. My degree is theology, but I teach philosophy and religion at secular schools. I haven’t taught at a Christian school in over 15 years.

@bradnick_d @Steve_R_Price "PhD Systematic Theology, Instructor/author: Evil, Spirits, & Possession/ Pentecostalism/ pneumatology/science & religion/ theology of religions" You're a charlatan.

@DonaldClark @Steve_R_Price I don’t know if they are Christian or not. Do you have evidence that my Christian students do this? If so, you know more than me.

@bradnick_d @Steve_R_Price So why would your Christian students do this? You tell me?

@Sacrifice_Isaac In the future exchange with a colleague. Filter out the ones that are not constructive. Then return. No need to read ones that are harmful.

This semester really depressed me. I'm kind of in a funk. The feedback and comments from students were pretty bad.

@DonaldClark @Steve_R_Price I’d be happy to show you thousands of papers that I’ve grade over the past 10+ years. Also, it’s logical. Highly likely that a free service is used more than a pay service.

@bradnick_d @Steve_R_Price Evidence?

@Marc__Watkins Makes me wonder how we can offer these students the opportunity to actually write a paper if they truly want to do it and to learn.

If we accept the premise that students are “powerless to resist” using AI to cheat, then we remove any agency from student behavior. Students are increasingly upset by their peers using AI. Many are making choices to do the work and learn. They need our help to guide them.

@lolo_tho 😂

I was told by a 22yr old today that there was no way people were writing 10 page papers without AI.

@trendsettercase Largely true, but it also depends on the theological school/theologian. Some are not as strongly tied to tradition.

Philosophy and theology have very different vibes. I think they boil down to the following: Philosophy: you better have something new to say. Theology: you can say something old in a new way, but it better not actually be new!

@drseanmullen I had profs at my school laugh at me because they didn’t think that students would AI-generate an image of themselves to prove attendance at an on-campus event. They said that students wouldn’t go through that much trouble. So naive.

Ok ok, but we’re not talking about the exams the Greek houses stored in a Dropbox crypt since 2009 and passed around to their descendants because certain professors never changed their multiple choice exams for 14 consecutive years (pre-GenAI, back when you were in school)… We’re talking about a student on a roadtrip through Joshua Tree while their chatbot gives a verbal class presentation, generates a highly convincing but completely fabricated medical clearance for why they “cannot turn camera on due to neurological symptoms,” attends three simultaneous lectures, emails discussion posts at 3:14am with the phrase “upon deeper reflection” 19 times, takes quizzes through an invisible browser layer, and then finally shows up in person for the “AI-proof” exam wearing Meta Ray-Bans, an earbud, and a hoodie string microphone while their phone OCR scans the prompt and whispers: “Excellent point. Begin paragraph with: ‘Historically speaking…’” Meanwhile the professor is proudly announcing: “This exam is handwritten, therefore impossible to cheat on.” We are entering levels of absurdity where the syllabus needs a cybersecurity division, an exorcist, and a TSA body scanner.

@ajjuliani I love this! Sad that many don’t even read what AI produced for them.

Student turns in a paper. Send it to AI, generate a 5 question quiz on the content. Student takes the quiz next day on their own paper. If they wrote it, easy. If they didn't, obvious. No detection software. No accusations. Just quiet accountability.

@tara_taylor I estimate that 1/4-1/3 of my time deals with AI cheating. Takes so much time. Pays nothing. Loss of time with my family. I wish I didn’t care about integrity. Life would be easier.

I know a professor who put in dozens of hours dealing with AI cheating this year. They have tenure and could use their previous experiences as part of the evidence. I wonder about junior faculty/instructors in more precarious positions.

@FeralHeather @McCutcheonSays Ugh. It’s a shame that it’s come to this. And you don’t get paid for all of the extra work. I almost think colleges should charge fees when this happens and reimburse us for the extra work. Might make them think twice about cheating

Adjunct here. Admin is MIA. It’s super obvious AI—repeated, flagrant. Hallucinated citations/quotations so plagiarism, too. Gave student chance to revise & resubmit & they have used AI again & again to complete entire assignments. Just going to pass them to avoid the headache

I am baffled that so many college profs are seemingly just now realizing how rampant AI cheating is and that they need to change their assignments. How were they so naive until now? I started to revamp everything 1.5 years ago. Were they in denial?

I love seeing the Amish in central PA celebrating Ascension Day by going to parks and taking joy in creation! It’s warms my heart every year.

@DonaldClark @Steve_R_Price More students now using AI as a one-shot “purchase” than ever used essay mills. What you describe should be happening but largely isn’t.

Different. AI is used largely to support essay writing, get some research, write, refine, restructure, that's how good writing works. Sure some shortcircuit. Essay mills were one-shot purchases, largely known and tolerates by HE, as exposure would heve meant reputation damage on a massive scale.

@Kierkegaarddd Tell them to start by turning around and running.

If someone wants to start reading Kierkegaard, where would you recommend that person to start?

@TheLincoln @dowellml Preach!

AI in academia discourse is completely warped by how only professors platformed to write about it are tenured at elite schools. What works in a 12-person Princeton class has basically no relationship to an average college's 40 person online class taught by an underpaid adjunct...

@2drdave3 That’s only of they read what LLMs have produced for them. Many, if not most, don’t even do this.

Here's a thought that horrified me: as students engage more and more with LLMs, and especially as the years accumulate, even when they DO write their papers themselves, they still might *sound* very LLMy. Resembling an LLM can be a matter of influence, not just direct facsimile.

@johnhboyer Also, gotta love when it says created by python-docs

Caught an AI paper and confirmed it based on file metadata. Student sent over five word docs as proof of writing history. Metadata revealed all of the files were created today, about 2 minutes apart, with only 1 to 2 edits per file. Clearly not the draft history.

@johnhboyer It’s refreshing to get one of these treats on occasion.

leaving comments and writing suggestions on a non-ai paper is actually pleasant after all the ai papers.