Claudine Gay, Plagiarism, and AI

Abstract:

The resignation of Claudine Gay as president of Harvard University demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of academic honesty by nonacademics. This misunderstanding contributes to the acceptance of the role of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in higher education and, in turn, degrades the experience and quality of education for students. This article examines how demographics, economics, and technology contribute to student understanding of AI. It then argues that the hallucinations to which generative AI is prone are fundamental to its output, and attempts to use it in the academy abet the diminishment of academic freedom to uncover truth. Attacks on academic scholarship should be viewed not as attempts to discover something true but as propaganda attempting to reduce higher education to vocational training.

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