SEATTLE — The school year is officially underway for tens of thousands of students in Washington. For many in the Seattle area, their first day of school was this week.
But as the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, goes up, school administrators are cracking down.
Last year, Seattle Public Schools announced they had blocked a software called ChatGPT on all student devices. At other school districts, like Lake Washington and Bellevue, policies have been updated to include stern warnings about the consequences of using AI to cheat.
One teen was honest about a prior instance of academic dishonesty.
"I was cheating on my math test," said Miles Harrison. The high school senior was an open book when it came to how he once used AI software on his computer to pass the test.
"I wanted to pass it, it was my final for that class, and the principal walked up behind me," he said.
She saw his screen, and his heart dropped. But, to his surprise, "She was just like, 'Oh you're using AI. Cool.'" he recalled. "She didn't think anything of it and I ended up passing the class."
It's a mixed bag with how people feel about AI, including the extent of their knowledge of it. But AI is also often used for more than just passing a test.
"I've also seen people use it to write essays and things like that," said Jullian Todaro, an SPS high school student.
The idea behind ChatGPT is, essentially, it can generate a human-like response for anything you want.
Users can have it write a five-paragraph essay about Catcher in the Rye, World War II, or anything else they can think of. The product will likely look like a finely-tuned, thought-provoking essay.
One Seattle Public School parent is preparing to have conversations with her daughter about it when she gets older.
"She will use some of these tools with some oversight from us," said Allison Augustyn, an SPS parent. She is also a college professor and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.
"I worry about if people are using it to avoid critical thinking," Augustyn said.
She said the technology is neither good nor bad; just different.
"It's actually brought a lot of good discussions to the forefront," she said.
So can teachers detect when a student's paper was written by a bot?
Turnitin.com claims they can; teachers can run homework through their detection software.
"There are ways of like, the teacher can tell if it’s like plagiarized or generated," said Evan Melendez, an SPS teen.
Is the fear of being caught... enough?
Another teen, Spencer White, believes so.
"I don’t really know anybody who, like, tries to use it to cheat,” said White.
But another SPS mother, Make Gallitelli, said she wonders whether-- with the right rules and monitoring around it-- it can be used in a positive way.
"How that technology can be applied to helping kids that maybe have a harder time writing," Gallitelli said.
She said she would like to see some research done about whether it can inspire critical thinking, rather than hinder it.