SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, Pa. — When Prof. Brian Gardner assigns students homework, he's not worried about the assignments being done on time. Instead, he's figuring out if the work is being done by a student or artificial intelligence.
"AI is not really a new concept, but the tools that are coming out that are using AI are taking it more into a broader spotlight," said Prof. Gardner, Penn State Schuylkill cybersecurity lead professor.
Gardner uses AI in his classroom to come up with coding examples for his students to solve.
"The (AI) example was way better than any of the reference material I had used or found to drive the lecture."
However, for as much as AI can help teachers, it can also cause big problems.
Amy Babcock, an English teacher at Pottsville Area High School, says AI has grown into an obstacle when figuring out the true author of student essays.
"I think a lot of times, AI for them is, in their minds, not, 'I'm cheating on something.' It's the easiest thing, the quickest thing, and I have a lot of things to do, and I have so much work. I just am going to do this really quickly," Babcock said.
Free AI software can write an essay and, in seconds, create paragraphs that pass an online plagiarism test. However, the topic of using AI as cheating is debatable.
"There are some people who think that it is because it's not your own work. There are other people who say it is not plagiarism because it is creating a new answer, " Babcock said.
Teachers say AI is taking away opportunities for students to practice the skills they learn in class.
"It takes the process of the student applying what they learned and actually using the tools to develop it. They're relying on AI to come up with the solution," Gardner said.
Gardner's goal as a professor is to teach students the boundaries of how AI can be used in a good or bad way.
"We're all trying to figure out the best way that we can use AI to our advantage."
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