Sydney academic used AI to write SMH opinion piece urging students to avoid using tech to ‘cut corners’

A top Sydney academic used AI to write an opinion piece that urged students to “do the work” and not cut corners by using such technology, with the Sydney Morning Herald removing the “unacceptable” piece from its website. Western Sydney University’s pro vice-chancellor for quality and integrity, Prof Cath Ellis, had an opinion piece published in the Sydney Morning Herald last month, in response to an article from the academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert . Moore-Gilbert had written that she had advised her stepdaughter to think twice before enrolling in university as students could easily outsource their learning to AI, saying students were “being graded on who can write the best AI prompts”. In response, Ellis wrote in her piece that the “AI problem is real”, but students should still go to university and study properly. “Don’t cut corners. Don’t outsource your thinking, however tempting that may be. If the system is as fragile as some claim, then genuine effort will not be hidden. It will stand out,” she wrote. However, the column, when submitted to AI-detector service Pangram , came up as AI-generated. Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email In response to questions from Guardian Australia, the university said Ellis had used AI in writing the column. “To write her opinion article, Prof. Ellis uploaded 40,000 words of her own original materials into a Copilot Large Language Model (LLM). …