A high school teacher has warned that around nine out of ten students have been using artificial intelligence to complete assignments, raising the prospect of mass failures and prompting concerns about the long-term effects on learning.
In a post on Reddit, the teacher said: "I may have to fail 90 per cent of my students this year. It's AI use. They won't stop using it. Every assignment. Nearly every child. Immediately, they run to it. They even use it for 'what are your feelings on X' type questions. And the AI answers aren't even correct."
Teacher's example of incorrect AI answers
Providing an example, the teacher wrote: "Question: What was the glacier's description a call back to? AI answer: The glacier was described as 'sea-like' as though it was a sea in a storm frozen in place."
The teacher explained that they regularly tell students how easy AI is to detect and how pointless it is when the purpose of school is to learn. They added: "I notify their parents. I give them zeros. I show them how wrong the AI is. How bad it is for them. Where it'll lead them."
Widespread use across assignments
The teacher described the scale of the problem, saying: "I have roughly 150 students. I had about 80 of them use AI. They will all get zeros (then there's the kids that just refuse to get off their phones and do any work)."
They continued: "Thirteen assignments this quarter and about 60 students used AI on every assignment. They're just plugging in my prompts or questions and copying the answers. There's no ethical use going on here. It's straight up plagiarism."
Warning about cognitive atrophy
Sharing a warning, the teacher said: "The research is out. AI used in this way leads to cognitive atrophy. These kids are getting dumber. I give them every chance and they choose to jump off into the void of ignorance. I feel like I'm failing them as an educator. It's heartbreaking."
Commenting on the post, one user said: "Document it all. Then fail them. We have to stop giving away diplomas to people who haven't earned them." Another user added: "You are not failing them as an educator, they are failing themselves."
A third user said: "I'm going through the same thing with my college students. They have an assignment to create a script to advertise a product (it's a marketing course). Every. Single. Project. Is. AI. All the projects have the same markers: the same scenario, the same names used (Maya, Jamal, and Emma), and the same structure. Every single project earned a zero and a report to the integrity office."
The commenter added: "Another project earlier in the semester had the same issue. You mean you all came up with the same colour scheme and tagline for this business? No. Here are your zeros."
