UC Berkeley professor who criticized student math abilities admits to using AI to help write viral op-ed

A viral op-ed from a UC Berkeley professor claiming she’s forced to teach underprepared college students middle-school math was revealed to be written with some help from artificial intelligence.

Professor Zvezdelina Stankova used the op-ed to criticize UC Berkeley’s admission standards and was one of thousands of faculty members who signed open letters earlier this year calling for the restoration of the SAT and ACT in admissions.

But Stankova admitted to the student newspaper, The Daily Californian, that AI was involved in the op-ed process.

“The faculty team and a number of journalists worked intensively on my draft over a period of three weeks with multiple drafts, meetings,” Stankova said.

She said AI helped edit the piece but insisted there were “several hundred person-hours of intensive human work and deliberation, of which about 80 hours are my own.”

Her article was flagged by the AI detector Pangram as 33% AI-generated or AI-assisted writing, according to the Californian. The open letters calling for college admissions tests also apparently used AI to edit, according to a joint statement from professors.

Stankova’s piece gained significant traction online and generated much debate over whether the University of California’s admission standards are too low.

Stankova blamed the removal of standardized testing for hollowing out the quality of students, leaving her with two different classes of students in the lecture hall: one that is prepared to learn, and one that needs extremely remedial mathematics.

Due to COVID pandemic disruptions and concerns over equity, testing was made optional in 2020, with a court ruling subsequently requiring UC to become test-blind through 2025.

The use of AI in crafting the piece may generate some controversy, given there’s been some criticism of how students use the technology to cheat the academic system. Professors themselves have been trying to root that misuse out.

“At the moment, this seems like deception. Or it seems like something that is at least dishonest to a certain reason,” UC Berkeley professor Hannes Bajohr told the Californian. “Because it is the person that makes that statement in their capacity as an individual that underwrites what they have written.”

But Bajohr noted that the norms around AI usage in writing may change dramatically in the future.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters