Across India’s universities, professors are reporting an unusual phenomenon: assignments submitted are flawless, paragraphs flow logically, phrases and arguments are grammatically correct but oddly disconnected.

The emergence of high-quality Artificial Intelligence-powered services such as ChatGPT, Bard and Co-pilot has altered the production of academic knowledge. In higher education, AI has become a secret collaborator, producing essays that could be mistaken for having been written by humans. By the time educational institutions started discussing whether AI should be incorporated into classrooms, students had long mastered their use.

There are obvious reasons for this quick adoption. Students who have to work or take care of families use AI to balance academic assignments with their life’s responsibilities. For international students or those with learning disabilities, it helps overcome language barriers. Even faculty depend on it to write emails, to write the assignment descriptions and create research summaries.

AI has been integrated into the writing process since it speeds up tasks.

This convenience complicates the picture. When writing skills are enhanced or outsourced, what should students be credited for? When an argument is produced by machines rather than the minds of a student, what are teachers testing? With AI helping smoothen out thought processes, students are avoiding the struggle, confusion and intellectual...

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