Student fights AI cheating allegations for using Grammarly | NewsNation Prime

I wrote the paper I did the research all it did was fix my grammar and my punctuation this student is so frustrated AI is everywhere these days including in some places you may not realize this University junr found that out the hard way Marley Stevens used a very popular writing plug-in called grammarly while working on a paper for her criminal justice class now grammarly says 30 million people use this tool and it does what you may expect it catches spelling errors typos grammar issues but when she submitted her work to the professor she was surprised

to find she was given a zero on the assignment it turns out that grammarly uses generative Ai and a detection service flagged it for the teacher as unintentionally cheating now the kicker though her school the University of North Georgia had grammarly listed on its own website as a tool for students to utilize and this back and forth began in December grammar Lee was not taken down from this website until just a few weeks ago we did reach out to the university for comment we have not yet heard back but Marley Stevens joins us now along

with Jenny Maxwell from grammarly itself Marley Jenny welcome both of you and I do want to start with you Marley I understand you are still on academic probation you're still fighting this three months later and you've been working to clear your record because you got a zero on this uh on this assignment your GPA has tanked your scholarship is on the line now were you shocked when you got that zero on the paper and you were put on probation I was at first when I got the email where he told me that he was putting

that he gave me a zero I thought that he had sent the email to the wrong person because I worked super hard on my paper and I had been writing my papers the same way all through college and so he sent me this email and I was like did he get me confused with someone else like what happened yeah and meanwhile you thought maybe that was a simple mistake would you have ever envisioned you're still fighting this three months later a whole scholarship might be on the line I really did not I didn't think that

my scholarship would be on the line I didn't think that I would be on academic probation um I'm on probation until February 16th of next year wow uh and this started when he sent me the email it was October so I didn't think that now in March of 2024 that this would still be a big thing that was going on yeah to your knowledge are are your other classmates also using grammar Le yes so it it's recommended on the school website um they did take it down for about three hours and when I realized that

they took it down I posted a Tik Tok about it and then magically it reappeared on the school website um so I know lots of people I have a teacher this semester who told me in an email like yes use grammarly it's a great tool and they advertise it so I never thought that that would be a problem but I know all kinds of people who use it whether they're in college or not yeah Jenny I want to bring you in here I mean grammarly does use AI technically explain why this is not cheating for

students to use yes thanks for having me I'm I'm really excited to to share our opinion about this grammarly has been the preferred writing partner for students and now Professionals for over 15 years um our our AI engine inside of it helps people uh create better writing experiences that are grammatically correct um have fewer spelling issues um we've recently added a generative engine within grammarly and we do it in a way that allows students to maximize the impact of the technology but do it in a responsible way in a in a way that allows them

to site and share with with their faculty or professors when they've used it and how they've used it yeah and since losing your appeal I know that you've started a GoFundMe as well and Jenny I know grammarly itself has stepped in and donated $4,000 I believe uh what are the next steps here both of you Marley we'll start with you um as far as next steps I can't go too far into it um I have been in contact with a lawyer of in a way um and we have had some conversations but as far as

the school goes there's nothing else that I can do directly with them they told me that since I didn't get suspended expelled or kicked out of a program that appealing my hearing decision was was not an option um and so I don't as far as the school goes there's nothing else I can do um but I have had meetings with some people from grammarly including Jenny and they've been very helpful um but there's not there doesn't seem to be a clear path forward I I understand and and you know Jenny one more question for you

you know AI is such a Hot Topic right now it's a divisive topic do you think this is a case of of just not understanding this tool of fear getting in the way and unfortunately the the casualty in all of this is Marley I think so I think um education is wrestling right now with how they need to evolve the way that they assess writing particularly in higher education we offer a unique perspective on this we have 70,000 teams globally worldwide that that use grammarly at work so we what we know is this new world

of work that these students are trying to be prepared for involves Ai and we see ourselves as a a great partner in helping institutions and organizations craft their policy around what is safe and acceptable uh usage of it you they have to lean in it's not going away and so that's sort of our position in it and we're really excited to work with Marley on on on what student perspectives we need to keep in mind as we think more about the responsible use of this technology thank you for watching go to newsnation now.com to find

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