The University of Sydney has recently announced that students are permitted to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their academic assignments. The University's Interim Head of School and Dean, along with 2 former law students, have spoken about the potential implications of this shift on law students’ education and professional development.
Under its new “sector-leading” assignment policy, the University will allow students to use generative AI tools for their coursework, marking a significant shift from its previous stance on academic integrity, which banned technologies like ChatGPT.
Starting in Semester 1 of 2025, students will be permitted to use AI for assignments, with exceptions for exams, in-semester tests, and instances where teaching staff opt to exclude its use.
Some potential advantages benefits of this change include:
- Inclusivity: AI has the potential to promote inclusivity. For example, international students in Australia may struggle to follow class discussions and understand the content if English is not their first language. Accordingly, they may rely on AI to translate or summarise the information for them.
- Personalised Help: Students can ask AI generative tools questions or confusions they might have about the content. This is a more accessible mechanism compared to asking their lecturer or tutor directly as some students may be too afraid to approach their lecturers to ask these questions. Hence, AI can increase their ability to understand the content.
- Efficiency: AI helps promote efficiency for students conducting legal research by helping them find relevant information and reliable sources. As a result, students can spend more time focusing on the application of legal concepts and principles, which helps build up their skills.
However, others have voiced concerns about allowing AI to be used as it could lead to a range of disadvantages or counterproductive results:
- Over-Dependence: Allowing students to use AI can result in them becoming overly dependent on this tool, thereby stifling their ability to think critically, creatively or uniquely. When given an assignment, students may immediately resort to using AI instead of taking the opportunity to attempt to complete the task using their own knowledge.
- Lack of Accuracy: AI generative tools often lack the precision and accuracy which other resources, such as university-approved textbooks, offer. As students use AI as a shortcut to learning the content themselves, their knowledge of the course may be surface-level and in some situations, based on inaccurate information or unreliable sources.
- Economic Factors: Some AI tools are free, but more accurate and effective models can cost a lot of money. Accordingly, students who can afford to pay for AI models would be in a more advantageous position compared to other students who cannot afford such expenses.