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Many professors have developed their own artificial intelligence policies; last semester, The Collegian did the same.
Editors gathered in the newspaper office and debated AI. The Collegian is a student-run paper, and as such, students wrote the policy with some advice from our journalism faculty.
Our policy is as follows:
- Do not let artificial intelligence write for you. This includes composition and revision. The Collegian teaches students to write and edit their own work. It also promises its readers that our articles are written by people.
- You may use AI tools that highlight errors, including misspellings, improper punctuation, or subject-verb disagreement. You may use AI as a dictionary and a thesaurus.
- You may use AI for research, such as the discovery or review of sources and documents. AI operates well as a high-powered search engine. Do not cite an AI-generated answer as a source. Sometimes AI is wrong. Check the source it cites.
Our policy treats AI as a tool. The writing in our paper is still human writing, but everyone needs help to find just the right word sometimes. You can whip out the college thesaurus your mom made you take to college, or you can ask AI. Either is fine with us. Use AI to find buried documents and information. But check those documents and read them for the needed information, because AI is just a high-powered search engine.
We don’t fall for the fallacy that AI is still the human’s thoughts simply compiled by a computer. To write is to think; therefore one necessitates the other. Writing is important because it allows information sharing, which is what AI does, but it is more important because it forces thought. This is the human aspect.
Using AI to write also removes the potential for growth from reporters and editors alike. Pope Leo XIV wrote in his recent encyclical that, “For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change.”
We’ll gladly take a human-written B+ article over an AI-generated A article because it provides the opportunity for growth for writers and editors alike.
Our commitment to our readers is that our newspaper is written by humans, not AI generated. Your fellow students sourced, wrote, and edited the articles in The Collegian.
New York Times Columnist Bret Stephens explained the significance of the written word over the spoken word in his plea to never use AI to write, ever. Writing “compels us to subject our thinking to the effort of articulation, the rigor of grammar, the tests of intelligibility and coherence, the inspection of others. In doing so, it also enjoins us to be clear, logical, accurate — and accountable.”
There is a reason our exams are in blue books. Subjecting thought to literary rules and getting it down on paper, or a Google Doc, forces thinking. This is why a written word often carries more significance than a spoken one. It is easy to say something offhandedly, but written things require thought. As such, we are held to a higher standard for written works than we are for spoken words.
People still need to develop the skills of thinking, writing, and editing without the crutch of AI. These skills may become more valuable as AI use increases and becomes a permanent part of doing business. But it is not how we do business.
Ellie Fromm is a senior studying history.
