Why We Failed to "Plagiarize" an Economics Project with AI
What we learned trying to crack a project's reliance on lengthy novels, journal articles, and field-specific standards.
Graham Clay
June 19, 2023 • Estimated Reading Time: 23 minutes
[image created with Dall-E 2]
Welcome to AutomatED: the newsletter on how to teach better with tech.
Each week, I share what I have learned — and am learning — about AI and tech in the university classroom. What works, what doesn't, and why.
Let’s take a look at the second assignment we tested for our AI-immunity challenge, which is our attempt to use AI tools to complete professors’ trickiest assignments in an hour or less — for science!
This week, I discuss why I failed to “plagiarize” an Economics project with AI tools, as well as how I could have done better — and what it all means for professors this fall.
The assignment requires the student to read a book, formulate an economic hypothesis based on its themes, find five recent economics journal articles to support this hypothesis, and create an annotated bibliography analyzing them.
Read on for more details or skip ahead to our takeaways at the bottom…