Generative AI is at most student’s fingertips. Just to demonstrate, I went into my personal Google account and asked it to write a paragraph on Abraham Lincoln like a fifth grader.
I asked Google Docs consumer version after my acceptance to their labs program, to generate for me with typos.
Then, it generated a short essay for me with three errors. (I would argue that it was way above a fifth-grade level and at least one issue, it wasn’t a typo but a factual error.)
The text I generated from the Google consumer version with their generative text features.
This again demonstrates that to attempt to block AI is pretty much impossible. Most students I know have personal office or gmail accounts, or their parents do. So, we must continue to make the presumption that all students have access to generative AI. Therefore, it comes down to the integrity of the student and if you do not discuss generative AI as being an integrity issue, how will they know?
Additionally, when these features move out of labs, everyone will have it with a “help me write” in their document when they start. That said, you could see a large chunk of data pasted into a Google doc unless the students retyped it themselves.
Once I insert the generative text into the document, I have it ready to go. I just need to decide if I want to keep the typos. Again, this looks higher than a fifth grade level to me, but the point is the generative text is being built into the consumer versions of all Office suites and many students have access to those consumer versions.
