If I had to guess, I’d guess that many of you have taken classes that have “No-AI” policies in the syllabus. I would also guess that many of you have blatantly violated such policies. If I continued to guess, I would guess that — though some of you might rightly feel genuinely ashamed of yourselves — many of you feel a sense of pride in your attempted deception. Perhaps you feel clever, telling your friends about it after the fact. Maybe some of you will even cheekily admit to your professors after graduation that you made it through college without ever reading a whole book and/or without ever writing a paper that is truly your own. 

Of course, this is a dangerous, moral inversion. Academic integrity is undergoing a great disappearing act, trust is being lost between faculty and students and there is an accelerated emergence of a culture of laziness — and some brag about their participation in such things. I suppose that those of you who violate “No-AI” policies realize the immoral nature of your actions and just don’t care, so I won’t expand on that here. I do, however, want to suggest that the deceptive use of AI is not only a manifestation of human fallenness but also a symptom of many students rejecting what education really is. Those of you who embrace the deceptive use of AI must believe that education is merely a means to an end; there is no other plausible explanation. That “end” is a transcript with some letter grades on it, which is, of course, only a means to another “end,” which is a job, which, if they are consistent, must only be the means to another “end,” which is money, and so forth, indefinitely. Life quickly becomes a mere series of transactions for whatever brings you the greatest “pleasure” and avoids the greatest “pain.”

If that’s the case for you, I implore you to reevaluate what you believe education is. If you come to rightly understand education to be more than just a means to various ends, and to  understand it to be an end in and of itself, then perhaps you can start really learning again. According to the great Greek philosopher Plato, “education is teaching our children to desire the right things.” If Plato is correct, and education is all about desiring the right things — the “common good,” if you will — then it is absolutely an end. If one truly desires the common good, then one will pursue it. If one truly pursues the common good, they will also get closer to realizing “human flourishing,” which is a phrase that comes from another great Greek philosopher, Aristotle. Human flourishing comes from Aristotle’s concept of “eudaimonia.” Eudaimonia is essentially the concept that humans can transcend mere superficial happiness and achieve a life of virtue, meaning and personal growth.

I hope we all want to desire the right things, experience personal growth, pursue the common good, come closer to human flourishing and become virtuous people. In fact, I doubt anyone would tell me that they desire the contrary. However, I cannot see how we can achieve any of those things when we rely on deceptive methods — such as violating a professor’s “No-AI policy” — because being virtuous is not “convenient” at the time. I think Immanuel Kant, one of the central figures of the Enlightenment and a giant in the world of philosophy, puts it well in the second formulation of his categorical imperative: “act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” When you deceive — when you use AI tools in a way that violates your professor’s expectations — you violate Kant’s categorical imperative by using yourself dishonestly as a mere means. You reduce your own moral agency to a tool for getting a superficially good result. And not only that, but you degrade the very purpose of education, which is to shape you into a rational, autonomous and virtuous person. 

You might be asking, but what if I get a bad grade in a class because I don’t use AI deceptively? And what if that changes my future opportunities to do good? To that, I’d direct you to Proverbs 28:6 (NIV), which says, “Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.” If we apply Solomon’s words to our academic work properly, we might get to something like, “Better the B- student who doesn’t cheat than the A student who never wrote a paper of their own.” The great Greek tragedian Sophocles similarly said, “Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.” 

So as we enter the 2025-2026 academic year, everyone can expect to fail sometimes. Please choose to fail with honor, and in doing so, preserve your integrity. Your integrity is worth more than any grade. Then, when you succeed with honor and integrity, you will have something to legitimately be proud of. 

There is great value in your authentic failure. There is no value in your dishonest success.