Even at Harvard, academic efforts to combat ChatGPT are mixed

Times Higher Education

Paul Basken

September 7, 2023

Entering a year in which ChatGPT has been shown to be a formidable disruptive threat to its curriculum, Harvard University has put a priority on trying to make its offerings “AI-proof”. The verdict so far from its dean of undergraduate education: there’s still a way to go.

“I’m finding that the transition is more uneven than I would have guessed,” Amanda Claybaugh, a professor of English, said of her efforts to prevent Harvard students making AI-powered sprints through their coursework.

“Some of our faculty have already reimagined their teaching entirely, while others still haven’t even tried ChatGPT.”

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That divide reflects the suddenness with which ChatGPT and similar online systems have made it possible for students worldwide to upload classroom assignments to AI tools that can produce competent and even quality essays.

Harvard got an especially stark warning this summer when one of its undergraduates, Maya Bodnick, ran an experiment in which she gave ChatGPT-generated essays to seven Harvard professors and teaching assistants – matching most of her freshman year in social science and humanities – and found that the papers earned an average grade of 3.57 on a four-point scale.

The result might partly reflect grade inflation at Harvard, but it also suggests that AI-generated essays “can probably get passing grades in liberal arts classes at most universities around the country”, Ms. Bodnick says in reporting her findings.

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