10 Jan CAN AI DO YOUR HOMEWORK?

I. Artificial
Intelligence and
School Work
Artificial Intelligence
(AI) has made great
progress over recent
years. Within the
past few months,
one company released two products
online for the public to use. Dall-E
creates graphic images based on a user’s
natural language request, attempting to
understand what you want and drawing
it. ChatGPT holds conversations with
users and can create poetry and prose
based on a user’s request. It can also
answer questions and write essays. The
technology is still new and the results are
very impressive but still not great.
Some students have already realized
that ChatGPT can do their homework.
A January 6, 2023 article in the Yeshiva
College newspaper, The Commentator,
is titled “Students Caught Cheating
Using AI on Final; Academic Integrity
Policy Updated.” Software has already
been developed to detect whether an
essay was written by a human or artificial

intelligence. I would like to examine
whether halachah forbids using AI to do
your homework. Of course, if the school
or teacher says it is not allowed, that
means when you hand in the homework,
you are agreeing that you did not use AI
for it. But what if there is no explicit rule
about it?
When I was in school, we were not
allowed to use calculators in math tests. If
we were caught using one, we were found
guilty of cheating. Today, students are
expected to use (expensive) calculators.
Teachers have changed how they teach
to incorporate calculators so it is now a
tool for learning rather than for teaching.
I suspect that AI will eventually become
a tool for learning also. However, that
will take time. Currently, if a teacher
assigns an essay, he expects the student
to write it himself. What does halachah
say about someone who uses AI to write
that essay?
II. Plagiarism
When it comes to plagiarism, presenting
someone else’s work as your own, there
are three possible prohibitions. One
problem is theft because you are violating

the copyright of the original
writer — you are stealing his
words and thoughts. Halachic
authorities debate whether
this is technically forbidden or
merely an issue of following
secular law (see Rav Nachum
Menashe Weisfish’s excellent
book, Copyright in Jewish
Law). However, that does
not seem to apply to AI.
Presumably, the artificial
intelligence does not own
the copyright on its writings,
although maybe that will change in the
future.
Another problem with plagiarism
is geneivas da’as, misrepresentation.
Rav Moshe Feinstein (Iggeros Moshe,
Choshen Mishpat vol. 2 no. 30) writes
that students in school are forbidden
to copy off each other because of
geneivas da’as. You are claiming to
have knowledge which you do not
actually have. Additionally, if the grade
you receive impacts your ultimate
GPA when you graduate, and you are
hired based in part on your GPA or
degree, Rav Feinstein says that you are
stealing from your employer with
every paycheck you receive based
on false grades. That constitutes
actual, ongoing geneivah (theft) in
addition to the initial geneivas da’as.
The same should apply to submitting
the work of AI as your own. You are
misrepresenting yourself as having
skills, knowledge and achievements
that you do not have. That act
constitutes geneivas da’as and could
lead to outright geneivah in the future.
Rav Aaron Levine (Moral Issues of
the Marketplace in Jewish Law, pp. 31-
35) argues that failing to properly cite
sources is not just misrepresentation
but also a lack of gratitude. If you see
a book quote a text and — relying on
this citation in the secondary source
— quote the underlying text, you have
to quote the book in which you see
the quote because that book is your
teacher. This falls under the Mishnah
(Avos 6:6), “Whoever repeats a thing
in the name of the one who said it
brings redemption to the world.”
However, Rav Levine says, even if
you look up the original source, you
still have to quote the secondary book
in which you learned about the source
out of gratitude. The book, or rather
the book’s author, provided you with
valuable information and deserves a

public thanks for the help.
III. Artificial Intelligence and
Cheating
The requirement for gratitude applies
in the case of plagiarism. When you fail
to acknowledge the original author, you
are violating the requirement to show
gratitude and more generally showing
disrespect to the author. Does this apply
to artificial intelligence? I suspect that
it does not. We do not thank the tools
and technology we use to accomplish
things. I do not see authors thanking
their computers and word processing
software, not to mention the printing and
binding machines that create physical
books. AI is just another technological
tool that does not expect gratitude and is
not offended by ingratitude.
In general, academic crimes of
plagiarism and cheating depend on
expectations. When a student is expected
to do math without a calculator, he is
considered cheating if he uses one. To
the best of my understanding, currently,
students are expected to write essays and
do other work without the assistance of
artificial intelligence. When that changes
(I say when and not if), usage of that
technology will not constitute cheating.
Until that time, using AI contrary to
expectations constitutes geneivas da’as
and possible outright geneivah.