CANYON, Texas (KVII) — With artificial intelligence becoming a dominant force in technology, professors at West Texas A&M University are warning students about the risks of relying too heavily on AI tools in their coursework.
Daniel Klaehn, director of writing at WT, said students have increasingly turned to AI to help write essays — and it’s easy to spot when they do.
“You can see their word usage, the sentence structure,” Klaehn said. “Especially when doing in-class assignments and seeing how they produce words in class versus what they’re turning in as final products — you can definitely see the shift.”
Mohammad Siddiqui, assistant professor of computer science, said instructors also face challenges when it comes to detecting AI use and verifying information generated by these tools.
“The tools to detect AI aren’t foolproof,” Siddiqui said. “Many of them have already been shut down because they were producing false positives. This affects not only students who use AI but also those who don’t, because it becomes difficult for instructors to tell who has used AI and who hasn’t.”
Klaehn said he often looks for imperfections when grading papers as a sign of genuine student work.
“I almost look for the imperfections, and I celebrate those,” he said. “If I get a perfectly grammatical paper, there’s a problem — regardless of whether AI was involved or not. It’s rare to get a perfectly grammatical paper.”
Klaehn added that while some students believe they can get away with using AI, the long-term consequences show up later in their careers.
“When they enter the workforce for the degree they pursued, they can’t perform at the level expected because they lack the knowledge,” he said.
WT professors warn students about using AI in the classroom (KVII)
