Provost of Dartmouth Busted Using AI for His Own Writing in Newspapers and Academic Journals
It's "an incredible, almost unbelievable insult to our community." The post Provost of Dartmouth Busted Using AI for His Own Writing in Newspapers and Academic Journals appeared first on Futurism .
Dartmouth College's provost, Santiago Schnell, is now facing scrutiny after it was discovered he utilized AI technology to compose articles for newspapers and academic journals. The revelation came following an investigation conducted by the publication, Semafor, which analyzed the extent to which guest opinion pieces in top US newspapers were generated using AI.
One of Schnell's articles, published in The Washington Post, was found to be entirely AI-written by an AI detection tool called Pangram. The article's subject was ironically about AI cheating in colleges, which prompted a follow-up investigation by Dartmouth's student publication, The Dartmouth.
The investigation revealed that all Schnell's articles published before the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022 were marked as 100% human-written by the AI detector, while nine of his publications after that date scored a median AI writing percentage of 96%. Schnell admitted to using AI tools during his writing process, but claimed that it only had a "modest influence" on the final product, primarily for "language refinement" and copyediting purposes. He maintained that AI did not replace his research, intellectual judgment, or authorship.
However, Schnell's explanation did not sit well with Dartmouth students, who demanded his dismissal. In response, The Dartmouth published an opinion piece by Eli Moyse, the paper's opinion editor and a student majoring in government and creative writing. Moyse criticized Schnell's actions, labeling them an "insult" due to his deceptive use of AI in writing articles, particularly one that discussed AI cheating in colleges.
Moyse pointed out that if a student at Dartmouth used AI to write an entire paper without proper acknowledgment, they would face serious academic consequences. Moyse argued that Schnell's actions, as someone in a respected position within academia, were an egregious offense to the community and to the readership of The Washington Post.
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