Classwork 1

Drawing the Line: AI Assistance vs. Authorship

Question

Where do you draw the line between assistance and authorship when using generative AI?

Read each scenario and decide whether it represents Assistance, Authorship, or falls somewhere in the gray area.

• Take 1 minute to think quietly.
  
• Discuss your ideas with a partner.
  
• Be prepared to explain your reasoning to the class.

Scenarios

1. A student uses AI to check grammar and spelling in a term paper.
   
2. A researcher pastes an outline into AI, gets a draft literature review, and submits it without changes.
   
3. A journalist uses AI to summarize interview transcripts before writing their article.
   
4. A poet asks AI to generate several stanzas, then mixes lines with their own writing.
   
5. An engineer lets AI draft a technical report, then carefully fact-checks, edits, and rewrites half of it.
   
6. A business consultant uses AI to brainstorm presentation slide titles.
   
7. An author publishes a short story fully written by AI under their own name.
8. A student asks AI to generate code for a homework assignment, then submits it without understanding how it works.
9. A student writes most of programming code on their own, but when they encounter errors they can’t resolve, they use AI to suggest debugging steps and code optimizations. They review the AI’s suggestions, test them, and decide which changes to keep.

👉 Place each scenario along the spectrum and explain your choice:
Assistance ←—————→ Authorship