Volunteer Asks If Essay Contest Winner Should Have To Return $1,000 Reward After Learning She Used AI
Should the winner really lose her prize money?
fizkes | Shutterstock Much of the discussion around using AI for writing has been about whether it is appropriate for the classroom when there are rigorous academic integrity policies to uphold, but it sounds like students are using it well beyond school. A historical society that holds an annual essay contest found this out the hard way after awarding the contest's $1000 prize to a student who used AI. The catch? They didn't realize the student had used AI until after they had already handed out the prize.
AI touches nearly every aspect of our lives, with people using it to do everything from building exercise routines to meal planning. Is it really any surprise that it was used in an essay contest? Sure, it's disheartening, but the reality is, AI isn't going anywhere. That means we all need to adapt to this new normal, even if it's a hard pill to swallow.
A volunteer from the historical society wondered if the winner should return her award.
The volunteer wrote into The New York Times Magazine’s “The Ethicist” advice column, asking for help with the conundrum they were facing. “I volunteer with our local historical society, which awards a $1,000 scholarship each year to two high school students who submit essays about a meaningful experience with a historical site,” they explained.
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“This year, our committee noticed a huge improvement in the quality of the students’ essays, and only after announcing the winners did we realize that one of them, along with other students, had almost certainly used artificial intelligence,” they continued.
The volunteer wanted advice on what to do moving forward. “I think our teacher liaison should be told, because AI is such a challenge for schools,” they said. “I also feel that this winner should be confronted.”
The advice columnist thought the best thing to do was absolutely nothing.
Kwame Anthony Appiah has been the advice columnist for “The Ethicist” for a decade now. Despite this volunteer’s feelings that something should be done to address the winner’s use of AI, he felt it was best to leave it be. “Unless your historical society explicitly barred AI use, the winner might not have thought she was doing anything wrong,” he argued. “Perhaps she provided information about a historical site and her experience of it and then refined what the machine produced.”
“What happened this year should be taken as a wake-up call, rather than a crime scene,” he said. “If you’re going to evaluate essays written without supervision, it’s wise to talk to the students and confirm that they actually understand the ideas in their papers … What matters is letting students know what kinds of assistance are off-limits and why producing work on their own is (as you and I believe) still worth doing.”
Appiah also mentioned that it might be time to reconsider the format of the contest. As he said, implementing a “supervised writing session” could ensure that there is no AI usage, or they could pursue presentations or some other method.
Experts are warning that AI reliance among students offers no long-term benefits.
The student who won benefited from her use of AI in this case, but continuing to do so will hold no long-term benefits. A study from MIT, Wellesley College, and the Massachusetts College of Art and Design found that students who used AI to complete writing assignments put themselves at a disadvantage.
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Study participants who used ChatGPT to write essays actually showed evidence of less brain activity, according to Education Week’s Sarah Schwartz. On the other hand, when students were not allowed to use any research methods for their writing — “brain-only,” as the researchers called it — they had the strongest brain activity.
AI is all about convenience, and it does make a task like writing an essay much easier. However, it changes the way people learn and retain information, which is really the whole point of assigning an essay in the first place. Students may not be concerned about this now, but it could hurt them in the future.
As it relates to the essay contest, however, Appiah is definitely right. You can't change the rules after the fact, even if it rewards undesired behavior. The historical society had the responsibility of setting the regulations for the contest, and now they know better for next time.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
