A professor at a French university decided not to evaluate the work of 120 first-year students because of the students’ excessive use of the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT, reports AFP.

“It is about a class of approximately 120 first-year students (…) who had to teach a written paper on thermalism (no, the use and therapeutic exploitation of mineral waters),” explained Samuel Cruz-Lara, director, on Monday at the IUT Charlemagne Nancy (eastern France).

“When it came to correcting the marketing papers, the teachers responsible for correcting the papers realized that the students were overusing ChatGPT: their papers did not contain a single spelling error or consisted of carefully studied sentences,” Cruz-Lara continued.

“If we had more time, we could have asked the students to explain their work, which we did with some of them who only half-heartedly admitted to writing. But we are at the end of the academic year and, given the deadlines, it is difficult for us to react,” the director added.

The lecturer responsible for the discipline decided, in agreement with the other assessors involved in the module, not to mark the disputed written test.

However, the director of IUT calmed down the situation: “Students will still receive a grade for this subject, so they will not be fined.”

For the future, he decided “not to stop access to this type of tool from IUT” but to “engage students in a discussion about the benefits and dangers of using ChatGPT.”

A change in the IUT internal regulations is also under consideration: “We already have a clause that deals with plagiarism, and I am asking to add one that deals with artificial intelligence tools, the use of which will be punished in the same way as plagiarism. “.

For its part, the University of Lorraine, of which IUT Charlemagne is a part, “has not yet taken a general decision” on the use of artificial intelligence.