It finally happened. I received my first failing grade because of A.I.. Only, I earned this score because of my refusal to use it. In my last class, students were given an assignment where we were asked to use a LLM of our choice to generate an infographic related to the topic, and then asked to write a short reflection essay about our experience using artificial intelligence “ethically”.
There’s just one problem: I believe A.I. technology in its current state is unethical whether one is using it for plagiarism or not. I have resigned to not use the tool for any purpose until there is legislation and safeguards in place to protect human flourishing. I reached out to my instructor stating my conscientious objections and politely requested an alternative to the A.I. portion of the assignment. She shared with me that the University wants students engaging with A.I. and an alternative assignment would not be granted, but she would be happy to pass along my concerns to the department.
After prayerful consideration, I did not engage with A.I., and instead submitted a reflection essay sharing my concerns about LLM use in the academic setting (Read essay below) and requested the paper be shared with the department as well as reconsidered as an alternative to the reflection assigned.
I instead received an “F”.
That was my choice. I knew that would be the likely outcome and I stand by that decision, but I am disappointed. Because I still received an A for the class, I did not pursue an appeal, but I did initiate a conversation with the department head where she listened to my concerns and my request to allow alternative assignments for students who will not use A.I.. She asked me to explore the University’s own A.I. tool and see if that assuaged my concerns. After trying the School’s tool and researching its development, I found it to be no different than any other model available.
In my follow up correspondence with the department, I again requested accommodations be available for students who morally object to the use of A.I., and requested another meeting to discuss this concern. I have not received a response. I’m not sure where to go from here. As an autistic person, I have to work very hard at letting things go once I have latched on to something, but when it comes to matters of perceived injustice? It’s impossible. So no, I will not be using A.I. any time soon, and I will not be letting this go, either.
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