BACK TO SCHOOL SPECIAL: A New Script for Academic Integrity in the AI Age

If AI Literacy Is the New Sex Ed, Start by Talking About It

Two weeks ago, we stood before a room full of first-year students at Cal Poly Maritime Academy, tasked with delivering the annual academic integrity talk as part of our “Faculty Tips for First-Year Success” panel. Fresh from recording an interview with Composition and Rhetoric experts Carl Whithaus and Aparna Sinha for the upcoming episode of My Robot Teacher (available Sept. 4), one idea was still ringing in our ears: Aparna’s point that AI literacy is the new sex ed (if you don’t talk to students about AI early and openly, your problems will only mount).

So we got in front of them as early as college allows - Orientation week - with no idea what they’d heard in high school (only that it was likely all over the map). As we prepared to have “the talk,” we knew we needed to say something that would actually motivate these incoming first-years to engage authentically with their learning instead of outsourcing the entirety of their thinking process to those ChatGPT-provided ChatGPT EDU accounts.

First, let’s admit that the traditional approach to academic integrity (rules, punishments, pledges) feels increasingly pointless when AI can write essays, solve problem sets, and write code in ways that are difficult to detect. “AI detection” software is notoriously bullshit, and single syllabus honesty pledges are like the purity rings of academic integrity: decorative ritual, zero protection. Asking nicely for compliance and forbidding AI tools without addressing the underlying “why” is a losing battle.

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION tactics first:

Now, at a maritime academy, we have something most educators don’t: the luxury of life-or-death stakes and major personal liability. The stakes are extremely real. Faked competence is dangerous. No one cares if you’re “good at prompts” if you cause Deepwater Horizon 2. But since not every degree comes with the risk of a multi-million dollar maritime disaster, here are some extrinsically motivating points one could use to essentially “scare students straight”:

• Don’t Humiliate Yourself: If you outsource the entirety of your thinking now, you likely won’t be up to the job you get later, and that will be humiliating for you.

• Don’t Embarrass the Institution: If you are incompetent at things you allegedly learned to do here, that will also damage the reputation of the whole university.

• Don’t Devalue the Work of Your Peers (related to embarrassing the institution): You represent this institution; when you graduate you become part of a community whose collective reputation affects everyone who came before and will come after you. If you drag down its reputation, you screw over everyone whose degree becomes less valuable. Don’t devalue your classmates’ hard work.

• The real exam is coming: Practical application and first jobs will expose hollow skills instantly. Your first job, your first moment of real responsibility will be when your incompetence gets exposed instantly.

• Cheating catches up with you: You will get caught, maybe not by detection software but by the inevitable moment when you’ll need to perform without assistance. And what seems like a “time saver” will lead to interminable panic when conditions change (blue-book exams, hands-on demonstrations, internet outages, for instance). Skipping the work now guarantees stress later.

But ultimately, we believe the “AI/Academic Integrity talk” can’t be just about scaring students straight through extrinsic motivations; it needs to instill in students the idea that cognitive work itself has value, and that the person they become through doing that work is irreplaceable…. So here are some intrinsically motivating points we tried out:

• Invest in Yourself: This period in your life is irreplaceable. You have a rare gift: time and space set aside for learning. Every shortcut now is a skill you won’t have later, and one you may never again have as much time and support to develop.

• Honor Your Passion and Interests: Something brought you here and you’ve invested enormous resources already to pursue higher education. Why would you hand that over to a machine?

• Make Integrity a Habit of the Mind: The small choices you make every day build the character you’ll embody for the rest of your life. Integrity is a practice.

• Honor Your Peers: No one wants to work alongside someone who skated through school while others did the work.

• Don’t Miss Out on Learning in Community: College isn’t just about passively absorbing information or getting a degree in isolation; it’s about building networks of people who will support you through life. One of the best parts about it is learning with other humans.

At this moment, students seem remarkably receptive to these arguments. We’ll see how things play out this academic year. Let us know if you agree, disagree, or have tips of your own.