How can using a grammar AI be called ‘unintentionally cheating’?

Grammarly, the company that provides the eponymous grammar and syntax program, recently announced that it’s getting smarter and now offers “strategic suggestions” for its 30 million users. It might not be an innovation that helps the company.

In a story that’s gone viral, University of North Georgia student Marley Stevens ended up on academic probation for using Grammarly on her criminal justice essay. Stevens said her professor accused her of

“unintentionally cheating” on her academic work because she used the program to proofread her paper.

Stevens received a zero for the assignment, which she said put her scholarship at risk. Under Stevens’ TikTok video, comments indicated that she’s not the only student who’s been penalized for Grammarly use.

Stevens’ case shows the murkier world of using artificial intelligence in schools – using it as an aid, a resource, rather than a replacement for one’s work. At my school, Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, the use of generative AI is prohibited.

Grammarly hasn’t been necessarily generative in the ways we think of that type of intelligence; it couldn’t write a student’s essay like ChatGPT can. But now the “strategic suggestions” make the program more generative in nature – and more likely to fall under general AI bans.

Here’s the rub, though: Many schools encourage and even pay for students to use Grammarly. It’s expressly promoted in at least 3,000 educational institutions that have signed up for institutional accounts, according to Grammarly. Whatever the rule is on using Grammarly, I will abide by it, but I notice that the concern over the type of assistance Grammarly provides hearkens back to the debate over calculator use in schools. Ultimately – in all areas, not just education – AI is a case of making sure our technology does not outpace our integrity or call into question honest work. Otherwise, we all may be cheating. Or worse, not learning as much as we can.

William Tang is a high school junior at Deerfield Academy and serves on the school’s Honor Committee.