Sample Letters To Educators

Sample letter to write expressing your concern to the School Board/Superintendant of the usage of AI Detectors:

Hi,

I have learned of at least one school using flawed AI detection software.  Given the many articles I have read about its false positives and other schools discontinuing use, I have serious concerns about how the software is being used.  You can read a summary of all these issues with documented research papers at: https://www.pleasedu.org/articles/modern-snake-oil-ai-detectors .

I ask you to have an open meeting about the use of this software, consider discontinuing its use, ensure clear and consistent policies surrounding its use (if continued), and, making sure the the student is given the benefit of doubt.

Thank you,

<Name>

Hello, my name is [insert]. I am here to ask that [school system] dispense with the use of AI detection surveillance on student work. The software is flawed and inaccurately flags student work resulting in children disengaging from school. Studies show it disparately impacts English language learners, minorities, and individuals with disabilities. Instead, [school system] needs to stay on the forefront of incorporating technology into our children's education as we build our future workforce. It must be incorporated into our curriculum, and we must not shy away from new ways of learning or assessing, which includes teachers being given the ability to actually get to know their students and their work style.

For example, when the "World Wide Web" was introduced, many of us probably remember that educators feared it and even some banned its use. Forward-thinking educators embraced the new technology and incorporated it into their teaching. Today, our classrooms do not function without the web.

We stand now on a precipice with generative AI, as we have done many times in our past with technology. For many of us, we fear AI because we don’t fully understand it. But, we must not create policies that impose fear and further disenfranchise our youth from education. We must dispense with the use of AI detection surveillance that is documented to falsely flag work, and nurture a learning environment that allows for curiosity and ingenuity while teaching its responsible use. Technology will always need human intervention and through it we can teach critical thinking skills to ensure students verify work, have correct research, and rewrite to ensure a high quality product.

An Advisory Council for AI made up of people who are experts and highly proficient in this Technology should be setup to help guide the school system in AI and to assist Parents, Students, and Educators who are experts and highly proficient in this Technology. 

Good evening, my name is [insert].  AI Detectors are Snake Oil salesmanship and their use needs to be discontinued.

What you hear of today as “AI” is not what you have seen in Science Fiction, it is in fact “Generative AI” a form of Narrow AI. Narrow AI has been in use since the 1950s and does not think, it has rules to analyze a set of data and generates a mashup of that data based on the rules and input terms.

There is a persistent myth that AI detectors represent a solution to a perceived "AI Cheating Problem".  However, research shows no significant increase in “cheating” now than before the advent of ChatGPT. The belief that these AI Detectors are a solution assumes AI writing has unique indicators, which language models, and subsequent research shows this is not true. The statements by AI detection companies about their accuracy are false, as documented by multiple peer-reviewed papers. Some highlights that show the inaccuracy are the use of Grammer checkers such as Grammerly will set off false detections, they detect writing before 2023 as AI, such as the US Constitution, and false detections on papers with formulaic writing, such as from a rubric.

These are just a few of the many reasons why many schools are disabling AI detectors and incorporating changes in teaching models instead.

With the coming integrations of Generative AI in many products, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office, there is no way to prevent the usage of Generative AI enabled software. This highlights the urgent need to write a supportive policy regarding the use of AI in collaboration with experts who have knowledge in the field.