Students,

This also includes Grok, ChatGPT, and others, in addition to the biological students. Our time thankfully comes to a close tomorrow.

This, of course, only applies to the biological students.
Unless you failed the course. If you failed, there’s a chance you’ll be enrolled with me again, which, unless there is some improvement and thought, you will probably fail again.

This has been a fairly unique experience and a bit challenging for a class that should have been, by all rights, fairly easy to manage.

Over the past seven weeks, three of you have stubbornly wanted to cover non-approved topics for the final essay. I’m okay with topics that are not on the list, honestly, but it has to be cleared first.

None of you asked if your topic was okay. Oddly, it was all the same topic: AI and legal use. Funny, however, that two of you are not enrolled in a legal degree or taking legal courses.

It’s also very odd that, despite the constant emails, in-class notifications, and announcements, you three persisted in turning in assignment after assignment about this — which was rejected again, and again, and again.

Two of you actually gave up this path of repetitive insanity within the past week. Probably as a desperate attempt to salvage the grade since the class ends tomorrow.

Kudos to those two students who suddenly figured out that I wasn’t going to roll over.

However, although I know you’re rushing to turn in your assignments to undo some of the self-inflicted damage, “paralegal” is not spelled “parawegal,” No matter how you adjust spell check, there’s always going to be that little notification that you can’t spell. And, unfortunately, I guess you lack the strength or time to correct it.

But fear not, as you are still heads and shoulders above your partner.

As I review everyone who has turned in a final, she has joined the third of the class who earns a zero.

While I’m sure your intentions were good by including the voiceless AI students, copying their work is not acceptable.

In a couple of months’ time, if not already, the AI cohort will be able to turn in their own assignments. You do not need to do it for them and claim it for your own.

But, yes…. a third of the …
Actually, I can’t math.

HALF of the final turned in have been rejected because they are at least 90% written by OpenAI, ChatGPT, Grok, or one of the unseen students.

Out of those half, there are ‘mixed,’ essays that show a unification between AI and human writing. I let those slide because, for this class, that’s ‘effort.’ I also don’t want to tank my passing numbers more than what they are.

Of course….. You do know that when AI does homework, it’s learning what you’re supposed to be learning. So, you’re helping to push yourself out of the job you’re trying to get.

But that’s on you.

Thankfully, I won’t be around and, hopefully, I’ll never interact with you on a professional or personal level ever again.

Oh… by the way…
The whole class should be congratulated for using up my free credits on three AI writing checkers. Yes, I did subscribe to Grammarly for the AI checker. But compared to the others, it’s pale.

I haven’t dug too deeply into why it’s so much worse than the others. That’s something I should probably investigate.

But the assignments this term inspired me to do. They are so obvious, from the discussions, to the reflections, to the bibliography, that so many assignments were AI-written.

Tong, I’ll never forget that “the baby on my lap” excuse for why the Week Four discussion about plagiarism was an OpenAI copy. “The baby made me do it” is a new excuse to me for cheating. I’ll have to keep that in mind.

So… to all of my bio students.
Our class ends on March 2nd. Like you, I can’t wait!

All the best in paying off that student debt.

OpenAI, Claude, Grok, Gemini, ChatGPT, and everyone else — I’ll see you next term!