BUZZ
Dartmouth University’s provost is under fire for his repeated reliance on AI to assist with his writings.
Investigations by Semafor and The Dartmouth student newspaper have shown that Provost Santiago Schnell, a Venezuelan native whose specialty is mathematics, repeatedly used AI in his writings — even in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post in which he warned against the dangers of AI’s influence on a college education and a degree’s worth.
He has now been accused of violating Dartmouth’s Academic Honor Principle, an op-ed in the student newspaper argues he should be fired, and campus leaders have launched a probe into the extent of Schnell’s use of AI.
“Making matters worse, when Schnell responded to the allegations in an emailed statement to the student paper, The Dartmouth, the young journalists ran that through an AI detector — and found it was 100 percent AI-written,” the Boston Globe reported.
“In other words, according to The Dartmouth, a provost accused of using AI to write an op-ed about using AI even used AI to write a statement defending his use of AI. Or, as one Reddit user put it: ‘Dartmouth Provost caught using AI for everything.'”
Schnell has responded to the controversy with a Sept. 25 op-ed in The Dartmouth.
“I understand that my use of AI in writing is raising important questions about the standards of scholarly and professional work,” he wrote. “In retrospect, I now realize I should always explicitly disclose use of AI in my public writing and be attentive to the expectations of AI use set by publications. I am sorry that this was not my standard practice and, moving forward, it will be.”
Schnell, according to his online bio, is also a math professor in addition to his provost role, and previously served as dean of the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame, where he was also professor of biological sciences and computational mathematics and statistics.
The provost serves as Dartmouth’s chief academic and budget officer, and is responsible for upholding academic integrity at the institution.
The op-ed in the student newspaper argued the provost position is too important to leave Schnell in it.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the overwhelming irony of it all: Our provost was caught using AI to draft an article about AI, and he was ratted out by an AI checker that is itself powered by an incredibly advanced AI algorithm,” wrote opinion editor Eli Moyse.
“In this time of uncertainty about the future of learning, the provost’s job is incredibly important. Provost Schnell is not the leader who will help our school develop a responsible relationship with AI. He must be fired,” he wrote.
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