> AI can be used for research on papers ONLY for the limited purpose of identifying sources, such as cases, statutes, or secondary sources. Students are responsible for the accuracy of their research and all other aspects of their submitted work.
Absolutely level-headed policy. Whoever came up with this deserves some serious praise.
My understanding is that this is analogous to AI use policies within many law firms. Using AI-powered search tools as part of research is usually allowed; using generative AI to draft or rewrite content is usually not.
(Given the importance of confidentiality, law firms also tend to be pretty picky about which tools their staff use.)
Maybe this is obvious or overly reductive, but that rings well for me too and sounds so much like early (and still wise) guidance for Wikipedia and maybe the Internet at large.
I’m curious how they draw the line for spelling and grammar checking. I’ve never seen a law school (or other graduate program) prohibit standard spell-checking or grammar-checking in software.
> AI use is prohibited for any use for any purpose in any exam situation.
Read literally this bans the use of hearing aids in an oral examination. All the devices on the market today use noise reduction based on neural networks or transformers. Isn't that AI? (The manufacturers' ad copy certainly insists so.) Presumably not what they intended but "AI" is not defined in the document.
ADA accommodations regularly change what can and cannot be used during an exam. This is not the “gotcha” you think it is.
Any lawyer making an argument along these lines probably used AI to pass the bar.
For example, a blind person could still get an accommodation to use a AI vision tool which reads the exam to them. Or the school could give them a human who reads the exam to them.
Either would meet the ADA accommodation requirements, and neither would actually be blocked by UC Berkeley’s new “no AI” rule because the ADA supersedes this “no AI” rule.
Banning Ai outside of the classroom is impossible, like telling students they cannot use google for take-home tests. Students will always find ways to circumvent these restrictions.
Law is so ripe for replacement by AI. It is entirely based on established written arguments with gray areas, edge cases, linguistic subtleties, etc., being the crux upon which many controversial decisions are drawn. That is, law arguments are based on a mastery of language coupled with knowledge of legal precedent. LLMs are extremely good at linguistic reasoning and can be trained on ever legal case every published.
You seem to have the impression that judges follow the law and see where it leads. In reality, judges tend to decide where they want to go and then figure out how to get there.
Judging and litigation will be among the last areas to be replaced by so-called AI, if indeed they ever are. People are infinitely complex and tend to disagree with one another.
> AI can be used for research on papers ONLY for the limited purpose of identifying sources, such as cases, statutes, or secondary sources. Students are responsible for the accuracy of their research and all other aspects of their submitted work.
Absolutely level-headed policy. Whoever came up with this deserves some serious praise.
My understanding is that this is analogous to AI use policies within many law firms. Using AI-powered search tools as part of research is usually allowed; using generative AI to draft or rewrite content is usually not.
(Given the importance of confidentiality, law firms also tend to be pretty picky about which tools their staff use.)
Maybe this is obvious or overly reductive, but that rings well for me too and sounds so much like early (and still wise) guidance for Wikipedia and maybe the Internet at large.
University of Chicago's policy is more interesting: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/ai-strategy-statement
I’m curious how they draw the line for spelling and grammar checking. I’ve never seen a law school (or other graduate program) prohibit standard spell-checking or grammar-checking in software.
[delayed]
> AI use is prohibited for any use for any purpose in any exam situation.
Read literally this bans the use of hearing aids in an oral examination. All the devices on the market today use noise reduction based on neural networks or transformers. Isn't that AI? (The manufacturers' ad copy certainly insists so.) Presumably not what they intended but "AI" is not defined in the document.
ADA accommodations regularly change what can and cannot be used during an exam. This is not the “gotcha” you think it is.
Any lawyer making an argument along these lines probably used AI to pass the bar.
For example, a blind person could still get an accommodation to use a AI vision tool which reads the exam to them. Or the school could give them a human who reads the exam to them.
Either would meet the ADA accommodation requirements, and neither would actually be blocked by UC Berkeley’s new “no AI” rule because the ADA supersedes this “no AI” rule.
Why would you consider an amplifier AI?
These days there’s often a tiny neural net inside good hearing aids which decides which frequencies to amplify by how much.
That way they can dynamically detect and remove background noise and isolate actual speech. Among many other features.
Banning Ai outside of the classroom is impossible, like telling students they cannot use google for take-home tests. Students will always find ways to circumvent these restrictions.
You have to be jacked to use the jackhammer.
Law is so ripe for replacement by AI. It is entirely based on established written arguments with gray areas, edge cases, linguistic subtleties, etc., being the crux upon which many controversial decisions are drawn. That is, law arguments are based on a mastery of language coupled with knowledge of legal precedent. LLMs are extremely good at linguistic reasoning and can be trained on ever legal case every published.
You seem to have the impression that judges follow the law and see where it leads. In reality, judges tend to decide where they want to go and then figure out how to get there.
Judging and litigation will be among the last areas to be replaced by so-called AI, if indeed they ever are. People are infinitely complex and tend to disagree with one another.