The Eagle’s editorial board is composed of its staff but does not represent every individual staffer’s views. Rather, it provides an insight into how The Eagle, as an editorially independent institution, responds to issues on campus.
In late March, American University announced new AI guidelines. As large-language models and other forms of generative AI become increasingly present in higher education, many students felt such guidelines were past due. However, the introduction of said regulations sparks conversation about how the University should be handling AI policies, enforcement and effectiveness.
The guidelines provide recommendations and encouragements for staff, faculty and students usage of AI. However, they are guidelines — not policy. Therefore, the recommendations listed are not totally succinct throughout the University.
These guidelines have left students with uncertainty on how they will be implemented and enforced. Currently, differences between schools, majors, courses and professors result in vastly different AI policies on a class-by-class basis.
Even with these new guidelines, disparities in the enforcement of AI-regulations can add to grade inflation or other disparities. Many students are weary of the unfairness that may arise as a result of this lack of a uniform AI policy — for example, two students could take the same course with different professors and get vastly different learning outcomes and grades due to respective AI policies.
Beyond the uncertainty around how these guidelines will be enforced, the conversation around AI on campus brings up concerns beyond the classroom. As a school that is committed to climate equity and carbon neutrality, the University’s support for AI seems counterintuitive.
Obviously, any institute of higher education needs to be adaptable to developing technologies — like AI — that are becoming ever-present in society, academia and professional fields. However, it is unclear how the surge of AI usage impacts the University’s climate commitments.
The University’s embrace of AI is concerning to current students and may give the school a bad look in the eyes of prospective students.
As AI and the impact it has on academia and the professional will only continue to grow, the University needs to work with students — both current and prospective, faculty, staff and others to create an AI policy — not just guidelines — that encapsulate all facets of AI usage as it pertains to higher education.
Though this is a very large undertaking, it is vital. The administration is not the only responsible party. As students and future professionals in a world that is only going to continue to depend on AI, we need to learn now how to navigate creating guidelines and policies around large language models in a collaborative way.
This piece was written by Addie DiPaolo and edited by Walker Whalen and Gabrielle McNamee. Copy editing done by Avery Grossman, Arin Burrell and Nicole Kariuki. Fact-checking done by Luca Palma Poth.
