Generative AI Policy

Students misunderstand the capabilities of generative AI like ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and Microsoft's Co-Pilot. Generative AI (hereafter "genAI") does not "think", "assert", or "believe" anything; instead, people project beliefs, judgments, and thinking onto genAI. In other words, people anthropomorphise the software. We have to resist doing that because when we think of it as something capable of human thinking, we tend to believe that it can do things that humans can. It can't. Taking this as our starting point better serves how to think about its use in the education environment.

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There is no doubt that the introduction of generative AI into education is similar to earlier technological shifts such as the arrival of calculators in university courses. Before calculators, students had to perform all calculations manually, which built foundational skills. After calculators, educators allowed calculators for certain tasks (e.g., complex arithmetic or graphing) but still required students to understand the underlying math. Calculators became tools rather than substitutes for mathematical reasoning. Just as calculators transformed our thinking when it comes to a tool in the classroom, genAI can help with brainstorming, organising thoughts, or clarifying concepts, but students still need to understand and construct their own philosophical arguments. Like calculators, genAI is a tool that must be used wisely and with oversight.

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Tools do not replace learning, but they can certainly reshape it. The onset of new tools may persuade us to view the tool as an indispensable companion, but we have to highlight what it is good at and what it is not good at. While I mentioned above that genAI is helpful for brainstorming and organising thoughts, I must admit that most of the time that I have used genAI for either brainstorming or organising thoughts, I firmly believed that there was a better way than the genAI's output. 

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At the University of Waikato, the use of genAI tools is permitted but only under specific conditions. For my papers, I value clarity of thought, originality, and critical reasoning, which are skills that must be developed through your own intellectual effort. Thus, I do not permit you to use genAI for any part of the writing or critical thinking process. This is an absolute rule that must be followed. While I am prohibited from speculating whether you used genAI in the production of your assignment, I can say that those essays submitted where the student used genAI typically receive a low mark.  

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If you're having difficulty with the material in the paper, please do not hesitate to visit for an office hour where we can discuss your work. I would be more pleased to hear that you are having difficulty with the course's content, and help you through it, than to receive AI slop in an assignment.

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