this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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A Massachusetts couple claims that their son's high school attempted to derail his future by giving him detention and a bad grade on an assignment he wrote using generative AI.

An old and powerful force has entered the fraught debate over generative AI in schools: litigious parents angry that their child may not be accepted into a prestigious university.

In what appears to be the first case of its kind, at least in Massachusetts, a couple has sued their local school district after it disciplined their son for using generative AI tools on a history project. Dale and Jennifer Harris allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments and that the punishment visited upon their son for using an AI tool—he received Saturday detention and a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools.

Yeah, I'm 100% with the school on this one.

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[–] [email protected] 190 points 1 month ago (1 children)

He didn't do the assignment. Those parents can get bent.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 month ago

But I heard the kid was responsible for writing all the material the AI was trained on!

/s

[–] [email protected] 104 points 1 month ago (3 children)

"a grade of 65 out of 100 on the assignment—has harmed his chances of getting into Stanford University and other elite schools."

No, using AI tools harmed his chances...

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Ehh, the AI did its job as a tool.

The kid harmed his chances by being a tool.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They didn't even give him the 0 he deserved?

[–] [email protected] 39 points 1 month ago

Right? He didn't earn the knowledge for himself (which is the whole point of school) so he was lucky, IMO, to even get that undeserved 65.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 month ago (5 children)

It's been a while since teachers were allowed to give out 0s in highschool. When I taught 12 years ago the lowest I was allowed to give was a 65. Even if nothing was turned in.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I can't imagine how bad of a student I would have been if "literally don't do it" was a 65. That's insane.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I imagine this must depend on the location of the school in question. Im in my mid 20s, so my high school experience was more recent than 12 years ago, but I remember getting quite a few zeros (was an absolutely horrible procrastinator who would tend to respond to the stress of having a due date coming up by doing anything else to not think about the source of said stress, which led to a lot of simply not turned in schoolwork)

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 month ago (1 children)

What fucking snowflakes. When I was a kid, if you had someone write your paper for you, you got a 0 for the assignment. When you go to college, they'll fail you out of the course for that shit (because its cheating).

The only ones harming this kid's future is the parents trying to coddle their kid and protect them from the (rather light) consequences of their actions.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 month ago (3 children)

They want this kid to get into Stanford?? 🤣🤣🤣

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago

He cheats from young. Great ivy shit material. Maybe if he rapes somebody he’ll get to be a supreme court justice.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

If they had the connections, then the grade here wouldn't matter.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

Liar, cheater, and lawsuit wielder? Perfect Ivy League material. Thats how political and managerial elites are made from.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

... allege that the Hingham High School student handbook did not explicitly prohibit the use of AI to complete assignments.

These are the type of people that force manufacturers to put wildly insane warnings of what not to do with their products.

Idiots. The entire family.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Way to Streisand Effect the incident for potential universities.

"Our kid will cheat and we'll sue you for calling him out" looks great on a college application.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago

No no, see, what ivy league colleges will see is "we have 'fuck you' money and we're willing to blow it on our kid's education".

[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I hope these parents get their legs kicked out from under them. The kid cheated and got caught.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

These kids need to learn what "fuck around and find out" means by themselves. Sheltering them from consequences does a lot of damage later on.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 month ago (1 children)

High-tech fancy plagiarism is still plagiarism.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 month ago (3 children)

OK, the parents are suing. And the district already filed a motion to dismiss.

Please understand, the world isn't a nuts as the headlines tell us. Judges toss frivolous lawsuits all day long. We only hear about the nut cases because they're nut cases. Money says this case is never heard.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (26 children)

Bad parenting. Not only did they not talk to their kid about what constitutes honourable academic conduct, not only did they not talk to their kid about the pitfalls of using generative AI, especially in an academic context, they are now teaching their brat that the proper response to fucking up is to blame the rules, to blame the school, to blame other people. Bad parents.

I wonder, have these people no shame?

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (7 children)

Looks like the handbook does explicitly mention it:

Academic Integrity: Cheating and Plagiarism To cheat is to act dishonestly or unfairly in order to gain an advantage. In an academic setting, cheating consists of such acts as communicating with other student(s) by talking or writing during a test or quiz; unauthorized use of technology, including Artificial Intelligence (AI), during an assessment; or any other such action that invalidates the result of the assessment or other assignment. Plagiarism consists of the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author, including Artificial Intelligence, and the representation of such as one’s own work. Plagiarism and cheating in any form are considered disciplinary matters to be addressed by the school. A teacher apprehending one or more students cheating on any graded assignment, quiz or test will record a failing grade for that assignment for each student involved. The teacher will inform the parent(s) of the incident and assistant principal who will add the information to the student’s disciplinary file. The assistant principal may take further action if they deem it warranted. See Code of Discipline.

From https://core-docs.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_file/4900/HHS/4719901/Student_Handbook_Code_Discipline_2024_2025.pdf

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Unless the school used one of those ai detection services that are known for giving false positives, I'll side with the school.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

The kid used AI. The lawsuit doesn't argue they didn't and are being unfairly punished. They're arguing that there weren't any rules explicitly saying they couldn't use AI.

Sounds like rich parents mad at the world cuz their kid fucked up. How can they ruin our perfect Billy's life over a decision he made, knowing full well it was wrong!!!! Now he might have to go to a less prestigious college... Boohoo!

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 weeks ago

My wife teaches, and she can spot the AI essays at a distance, it's not hard.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 month ago (9 children)

Dude, the fact that the student has to use AI tools to get by, does not mean he's going to be a success story in life. It just means he's going to find shortcuts and exploits to make things easier over everyone else that had to do things the natural way. This is no different than someone using calculators in math tests where it's not allowed. This is no different than someone simply peeking over another's work and copying down. Using AI generative tools to gain an advantage is in the same ballpark.

So these entitled parents and that entitled student can go get fucked. I hope these universities see this and recognize that this student is a borderline cheater and hopefully deny him anyways if this gets overturned.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

I'd say more than borderline cheater but yeah.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 weeks ago (7 children)

This is one reason why people don't want to be teachers and why education is going down the toilet. Entitled parents who run to lawyers in our hyperlitigious society every time their spawn is slightly inconvenienced.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (1 children)

These fucking dickbrain parents. What do they think, they win the lawsuit and Stanford doesn’t realize the kid took a shortcut?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago

None of my friend's parents growing up would sue the school, but they were all the type of parents to go in and argue with teachers over grades. It was usually to go from a B to an A or some bullshit.

My parents on the other hand were more like, you fucked that up didn't you if I didn't do well on something. I would have been mortified if they argued about grades on my behalf.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Great job parents, now your kid will learn nothing from this teachable moment.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 month ago

Kid learns nothing by cheating on the assignment.

Well, at least the bad grade and detention will be a teachable moment.

Parents: Hold my daytime wine.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (4 children)

Perhaps it is also that LLMs are horrible at making any kind of argument and probably wrote a shit paper, never mind the plagiarism? Frankly a 65 is a high mark for doing something like this

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago

Parents with more money than sense.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

He should have gotten a zero.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (2 children)

They think their AI dependent son is qualified to go to an elite school.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Article doesn't say if he used AI to wholesale write his paper, which obviously is cheating, or if he used it as a resource like Google. Some details would be nice here.

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