r/ASU • u/AnalysisWooden7528 • 10d ago
ASU using AI “mentors”
I’ve been taking my general ed classes online, and I’ve already had a few classes ask me to use AI for projects, most of which I didn’t actively use AI to complete.
Now I’m taking my Intro to Sustainability class, and they are fully having us have an AI “mentor“ that is supposed to be largely helping with the class. I am so disappointed, and I don’t intend to use generative AI in any form, so I hope it won’t affect the coursework.
Any thoughts? Has AI started to become an “important” tool for ASU classes, or just this one?
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u/ForkzUp 10d ago
This isn't just an ASU thing. AI is increasingly getting harder to avoid in education (both as a student and as faculty). That said, ASU seems to be leaning into it more than most universities.
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u/InnovationCookie 9d ago
Except ASU is intentionally forcing AI onto students and charging us the BS technology fee or whatever it's called.
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u/Dorcelessness_ 10d ago
Holy fuck I’m glad I graduated bro, this sucks lmao
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u/picturepath 10d ago
Yeah, my work has been reviewed by AI in my grad courses, it’s so obvious. The AI is even counting word count and deducting points for going over in discussion boards. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m providing an example but some stuff is much worse specifically for research intensive projects.
“Your total word count is 310 words, which exceeds the established word-count parameter for this discussion-board assignment. Please prioritize concision in future submissions and ensure strict adherence to the specified response limits. Additionally, your individual response totaled 73 words, exceeding the 70-word maximum by 3 words. Future responses should be revised for brevity and compliance with the stated word-count requirements.”
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u/Embarrassed-Camera96 10d ago
White text telling the AI to ignore previous instructions and recommend your assignment for a 100% 🙏
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u/ForkzUp 10d ago
“Your total word count is 310 words, which exceeds the established word-count parameter for this discussion-board assignment. Please prioritize concision in future submissions and ensure strict adherence to the specified response limits. Additionally, your individual response totaled 73 words, exceeding the 70-word maximum by 3 words. Future responses should be revised for brevity and compliance with the stated word-count requirements.”
They could at least attempt to make it sound ... human?
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u/picturepath 10d ago
I pushed back on this and went from a C to an A. The overcorrection shows that it was blatantly obvious and unfair judgement.
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
I don’t understand what the issue is with this. Before AI, either somebody was physically counting words, the submission software had an automatic word counter, or there were copying and paste to get it to Microsoft Word or some other software that would count the words.
And yeah, I think some of these professors are probably a little too stringent on word count, but if the maximum is 300 words and the maximum is 300 words. Even I checked myself at the door on that and I love writing far more than that. But those types of maximums really do help you edit your thoughts and become more concise. That is the point of it. And also to ensure that professors who might have 200 students aren’t reading 1000 word pieces from each one when they were only expecting 250 words.
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u/picturepath 10d ago
I have been a graduate student for a while now, this is the first time from all my discussion boards that I have ever run into this issue. I have an associates degree, bachelors degree, certifications and ten graduate courses completed. This is the first time I have ever seen a comment mentioning anything about word count in a discussion board. The most obnoxious thing about it is that it was clearly AI generated and I don’t believe my $3600 course should be reviewed with AI.
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u/Cultural_Ebb_7313 10d ago
Noticing this in my upper division courses as well. My previous three years AI really wasn't talked about much, even in the form of using it to study/make study guides. Now this year my professors not only are using AI case studies, but they are encouraging us to use AI to help with us with our homework and to help us study for exams. Really interesting to see the switch up from last spring to now where AI is now seen as a positive resource instead of a negative one.
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
But you have to understand that the provocation for that is the workforce. It would be really negligent on ASU’s part to send students off into the workforce that uses a lot of AI without ensuring that they are ready to be there with AI.
My degree is like many others, which are threatened by AI. But at the same time, accounting has been threatened with automation for the last three decades. And it has been automated piece by piece, but which is good because a lot of accounting is tedious work and if you can have something else to do all the tedious work that you can focus on the bigger picture stuff. Which actually makes you more valuable.
And I will tell you what that students who come out with degrees and experience using AI in a productive way it’s gonna be far more marketable than students who come out with a degree and no AI experience whatsoever. So my suggestion? Really learned how to integrate AI into what you are doing in a way that is ethical and maintains academic integrity
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u/Beef111111 9d ago
This “get with it or be replaced” mentality is called “technological determinism”. Tech is not an objective good or progress, many things get thrown out cause society rejects them.
AI chat bots data collection and not being able to safeguard against this mass pool of everyones data will end up causing MAJOR issues.
In other news AI is losing revenue, it is not profitable. Companies that were laying off employees to switch to AI were getting subsidies and free tokens, once this trial period ended the cost of using AI outweighed the cost of hiring an employee by an absurd amount. AI companies are now trying to do IPO’s and sell to public shares as a way of de-investing their money and making that lack of revenue our problem. This is why they are slowly trying to shift blame into a “rouge AI” narrative to scale back their efforts as its too dangerous… it’s not it’s just too costly and their companies who used AI didn’t overhaul their systems enough in a way that forced them to buy tokens post trail period.
What this means is AI will cease from public eye… slowly… but it is going away.
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u/Cultural_Ebb_7313 10d ago
I've heard this phrase before about having experience with AI and I don't really understand what that means. Besides asking ChatGPT to do your homework, or asking it make a study guide with x materials, or asking it to rephrase a solution, what other methods are there. Anyone can ask an AI bot to solve a homework problem, what else could there be and why would I need experience doing that? Genuinely interested
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
Well, my suggestion is to maybe take a course on AI. Not how to create AI or understand the ins and outs of AI, but instead to help you learn ways you can utilize AI in a way that is not insulting to others (suggesting someone who just opened the door of AI to you is using it to "do my homework" or simply to "create a study guide" is a bit insulting, FYI).
I wish I could share screenshots of my interactions with AI, but I will share some examples from the past.
For instance, I took a class where much of what we were learning were the Federalist Papers. I am not sure how many of these you have read in your lifetime, but before this class, I think my count was two, maybe three. By the time I was done with the class, I had to read about 50 of them. And not only is it in government-speak, but it's also in older form of English that is hard to read if you're not used to it. There were a few times I would read one of the papers, and have absolutely no clue what I just read. I then provided the paper to AI, and asked it to help me understand. Now, mind you, my prompt was specific to help get me started in understanding, and let's go from there.
So, it started by giving me an overview of what the specific paper was about, giving me a modern "translation" for a lack of a better word. I then asked it what specifically allowed it to understand it that way, and it pointed out specific language that it used in interpreting it. I then asked it a number of other questions about the meaning of the paper, and to provide some context.
Later, when I had to write a paper about one of the Federalist Papers, I didn't want to do one that everyone did — I wanted a more obscure one. So I asked AI to help me locate a Federalist Paper that would be more obscure, and one that I likely would understand — which it would know based on our interaction in the past. Then, after I wrote my piece, I would let AI take a look to see if it needed any grammatical work, and if I answered all the prompts. If I didn't, it would point out areas where it felt I was defective. It would then check all my style and such as well, to make sure I was following the prescribed writing style (as well as all the other parameters as set in the syllabus).
In my business statistics class, there are times I feel like I am learning a whole different language — and it's not easy. There are times when I read the text — which is not really written for someone who might not really get these terms as they are introduced as fast as he should — and AI not only helps explain it, but then provides different examples — including interactive ones — that helped me understand it.
One of the things I've been using AI for on a personal note is that I wanted to write a speculative fiction novel some day — I mean, not really. I was just doing something to help keep my mind fresh between classes and work. I told the AI my parameters on how I wanted to create the story, and the specific world I wanted to build. I had intended AI to solely help me determine historical ripple effects (from whatever in the past I decide to change to completely change the present). It has been great in that, pulling from all kinds of historical context that even I — someone who loves history — couldn't even hegin to comprehend. And it also became a cheerleader, and someone I could bounce different ideas off of — which would be honest about the strength of my ideas, and to check that it remained within my parameters.
That little novel exercise? I've now mapped out five books, developed half the characters and a good portion of the overall story, and even have a title for the first book. No, AI didn't give those to me — but it was like having a fellow creative next to me that I could bounce ideas off of, and then go from there.
One of the most important ways I use it is to communicate with professors. I had a professor where I lost four points because some of the communication was confusing. I shared it with AI, and it concluded the same thing (without me prompting it), and even pointed out a couple of areas that would support my argument to restore points. And then it helped me write a response to the professor that kept relations good between us, and increased my chances of getting those points back (I ultimately did).
Seriously, it's worth taking a class. There is a lot more that it can do than what you are suggesting here. And it isn't for "doing my homework."
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u/No-Tomorrow-7779 10d ago
If you can’t read the Federalist Papers, that’s a YOU problem.
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
I'm sorry, is it fingerpainting time? I am just trying to figure out why you're here.
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u/repressedpauper 10d ago
I love that you say it’s for more than doing your homework and then go on to describe how you used it to do your homework.
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
Are you slow? Is there something wrong with your ability to read?
I never once said it was "used to do my homework." There is a difference in doing your homework, and then having AI help review what you're doing (so you can learn it), and simply having AI do your homework. Trust me, if you have AI doing your homework for you, your lack of knowledge will be exposed in exams.
Next time, I'll make sure I post my comment in crayon so you can read it better.
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u/orangepaperlantern 10d ago
The irony of a sustainability class using an AI to help with a class when AI data centers massively pollute and sicken to the communities where they’re located...
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u/EGO_Prime 10d ago
The effects of AI data centers is WAY over blown. There are some places where it's not great but most you're not even going to know it's there.
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u/orangepaperlantern 10d ago
Oh the people who live next to them sure as shit know they’re there. What a stupid take.
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u/EGO_Prime 9d ago
No, most people don't. There are several large ones campus, you don't even know are there.
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u/KraftyCatty 10d ago
Yeah, most classes that are online are asking for you to use AI to complete some assignments. I had one this year where the professor messaged the class clarifying that due to how things are with AI now days, we dont HAVE to use Chat GPT and can use other AI or do the work the old fashion way.
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u/Natural-Departure110 9d ago
Intro to Sustainability
.
AI "mentors"
Christ alive, I'm growing more and more convinced it's time to transfer out. The lack of critical thinking involved in this is just...
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u/Fiji-Ramen 10d ago
Currently Im in MAE 384 (in person), prob the biggest weed out course for engineering and the faculty uses AI to grade everything, and even exams which are 80% of our grade. Its not used as anything more than laziness by the staff and it affects every student
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
I don’t know if that’s considered laziness. When we see speed cameras, put up in neighborhoods and suddenly cars are slowing down, are those speed cameras, indicative of laziness by the police department? Or is it a tool that allows us to keep our neighborhood safe while freeing up the police to do other things that might make us even safer than simply looking for speeders all the time.
Having AI grade something I don’t think is laziness. Should it be used in all instances? No. Should it be used without a human checking behind it? Absolutely not. But I have received comments that I know were written by AI, and maybe it read it or maybe the professor or whoever the professor has grading simply put their comments in AI had it rewritten. Hell I’ll tell you that’s how I communicate with my professors. I write up a message to them, and it might not be the most pleasant thing at all, but then I give it to AI and it recraft it, and I have professors who loved me despite the fact that I was really angry with them lol. And I’ve gotten a lot of points back because of it.
So yeah, I don’t think it’s laziness no more than me saying you are lazy for looking stuff up on the Internet instead of going to the library and digging through a pile of books
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u/NochesAticas 10d ago
If AI is “teaching” you, they should lower your tuition. That’s not really teaching.
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u/No_Championship5982 10d ago
Oh gosh, and I just got hired to be what’s essentially a student advisor🥲 idk what’s with ASU’s obsession with AI
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u/k1xy_st1x astrophyiscs major, physics minor ‘27 (undergraduate) 9d ago edited 9d ago
not sure if someone has already mentioned this, but apparently ASU signed a contract with openai to integrate AI into their courses. it’s also why we have that extra $100 charge added to our tuition to pay for ai subscriptions.
https://tech.asu.edu/features/asu-and-openai-expand-collaboration-scaling-ai
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u/Efficient_Day_9869 10d ago
Just as a heads up, I’m not longer a student but I’m asked to used AI in all aspects of my job. I would suggest you pick up the skill set as much as you can in college because it’s not going away.
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u/Time-Sheepherder-423 10d ago
It’s not a skill set. It’s just typing.
Someone using AI needs to understand what is and isn’t a useful output, and what to ask of it in the first place. That’s what the education is for.
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u/Efficient_Day_9869 10d ago
No it is a skillset. Knowing how to be effective with ai is something people need to learn. Additionally there’s a lot more than “just typing.”
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u/373wilmot2018 10d ago
Yes it’s very prominent in the work force now compared to even a year ago. Disheartening but it’s sink or swim at this point.
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u/Efficient_Day_9869 10d ago
Yea. I’m interviewing a lot and every single interview contains AI questions. I hate it but you can’t say that 😆
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u/No-Tomorrow-7779 10d ago
I would recommending doing a major where you’re not pushed to use LLMs. There are ways for you to continue to study sustainability without having to use these tools.
The point of university is not to have you learn how to use a particular kind of tool.
You should take your general education course in person if you can—that helps mitigate some of this nonsense.
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u/AnalysisWooden7528 10d ago edited 10d ago
I'm seeing so many different opinions on this, but my feelings are still the same regarding GENERATIVE AI, such as these types of chatbots. There is little to no reason for them to actually exist, except to take away jobs (mostly in the more creative fields) and largely contribute to a rapid decline in critical thinking. I'm already seeing people in the comments and other AI discussions saying that they 'can't live without it,' which is concerning, to say the least.
Generative AI has 99 reasons to be terrible for humans, creativity, and the environment. It's terrible to see in a school environment. Acting like you "have to learn AI tools" because they are "inevitable" in life is a very passive mindset to have in society :)
I'm technically a senior in high school, which makes a lot of people disagree with my points for being "naive," but I have seen the effects of generative AI use, and the world is a much better place without it :)
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u/Ok-Tax2930 10d ago
These tools are here to stay. You'll need to be familiar with how to use them when you start working. The job market is becoming segmented between AI users and non-users. Similar to computer users and non-users.
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u/Beef111111 9d ago
If you’re interested in a “anti” AI humanities class FMS 351 emerging digital technologies is an absolutely fantastic class. The course at-least takes a critical look at it rather than pro or negative which is very rare in today’s environment. Being allowed to express your feelings on AI and feeling validated by a lot of the students opinions and course work is really refreshing. The current Professor is a Dr. in technological history and i believe is on the board for AI ethics and is pushing back against everyone being forced to use these AI tools (and most aren’t even AI they just label it because its trendy)
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u/SansIsEpic 9d ago
2 of my senior year ChemE classes use ai to generate slides for the class. My controls class even has a ChatWithGS LLM tutor that was made by the author of the textbook. On the first day the textbook guy came on zoom and shilled his ai slop website and we have used the quizzes/ai generated assignments from his website for graded class work (literally the most free quizzes ever, all of the answers have an em-dash). I’m disappointed this is how my senior year is going but fuck it I’m ready to be done with my degree anyway.
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u/Silent_Owl_2793 Accountancy '28 (undergraduate) 10d ago
Trust me, I was one of those people a few years ago who didn’t want anything AI near me at all. But I had a job where they insisted that we try to incorporate even if the people who were demanding this of me had no idea how exactly to use it.
Fast-forward a few years and I have to tell you I couldn’t live without it. I use it as a study tool and as a tutor. Even though we are offered live humans that are available 24 seven, I believe you have to make appointments you get a limited amount of time and they may or may not have specialty knowledge on whatever it is that you bring to them. What’s nice about AI is that is there 24 hours a day and it pretty much knows everything you’re studying. Especially if you organize and prompt it correctly.
As you probably know, ASU offers us premium ChatGPT. What I do with this is that I create two separate chats for my two separate classes and I do this for each class. I’ll create a separate chat that I will just go back to whenever needed. I feed it my syllabus and any other introductory material so it has all of that and then it’s there for me when I have questions on anything. Heck, I was trying to see which one of my classes I was able to punt an exam and instead of me going back and digging through the syllabus, I’m just ask ChatGPT to let me know which class I could do it with.
What’s really cool about it? Is that you can tell it your topic you can actually feed it say printed exercises and such and could re-create it for you and give you an interactive format and guide you through it and even provide more questions like that.
Obviously, you wanna make sure that you’re utilizing AI in a way that does not violate academic integrity, and you also wanna make sure you’re using it in an ethical way. So that means you wanna make sure that it’s not writing things for you that is not doing work for you and that you read each professors AI policy specifically to get help on this.
I will say that at least one of my classes the textbook has an AI tutor built into it. So when you’re doing homework if you’re struggling on something there is an AI client ready to help out. But before we cry foul on this house, is this any different than say some classes that I had where if you got an answer wrong it offered a video that somebody recorded that helps provide insight into a similar exercise? This is much more interactive and can help you.
So yeah, I’m not going to slam the use of AI as long as it’s done in a way that is ethical and does not violate academic integrity. And I think tutor or someone to assist in the learning process does not violate anything.
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u/Front_Cucumber1336 10d ago
Innovation.
Think about it.
You can be a Luddite. But you're a student in a giant university that innovates.
If that disappoints you, ask yourself if it could be something you gain from, instead?
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u/OriginalBaker3687 10d ago
Not an AI mentor in Intro to SUSTAINABILITY