Students in New South Wales have queried whether a "photograph" used as a stimulus in an HSC English exam was in fact AI-generated, sparking accusations of hypocrisy given the strict rules around students themselves using AI.
The standard and advanced English paper 1, a compulsory subject taken by thousands of students on Tuesday, was on the subject of "texts and human experiences".
Question 3, worth five marks, required students to compare how an extract from Elizabeth Strout's My Name is Lucy Barton and an image of a table covered in electronics and wires, looking out to the ocean, offered "a perspective on the ways individuals perceive their surroundings".
In the exam, the image was listed as a "photograph" without further attribution. A spokesperson for NSW Education Standards Authority did not confirm whether the image was AI-generated beyond linking to its source article.
They said whether students thought the image was AI-generated or not would have no bearing on their results and marks would be awarded for "how they responded to the question, using the image as stimulus".
Students, however, took to social media to express their frustration.
"I just finished the exam ... and the fact that this was AI distracted me all the way through," one wrote.
"I can't believe the contradictory nature of adding this AI image into the exam ... if you're going to use this new technology because it's easier and more suited, why can't we? My biggest peeve is AI content not being flagged, I'd like to know what I'm looking at, thanks."
The image's source was a post by tech blogger "Florian Schroeder" on medium.com titled "The Power of Digital Detox: Unlocking Productivity Through Switching Off".
Online, Schroeder - who shares his name with a famous German television personality - describes himself as "passionate about AI", having "integrated it firmly into his daily work". He is the co-founder for data and AI magazine AI Rockstars. Schroeder only has one display picture - which appears to be an AI-generated image of the actor.
According to Nesa's policy on the use of AI in schools, AI will "never replace strong curriculum, effective assessment and good teaching practices" and unapproved use is a breach of academic integrity.
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All work presented in assessment tasks and external examinations must be a student's own or acknowledged appropriately. Nesa also notes AI can be "unreliable" and must "always be monitored by a human".
"AI can produce biased and/or toxic content, false information or facts that are not based on real data or events and false citations," it says.
A lecturer in English and writing at the University of Sydney, Dr Benjamin Miller, who is working with its educational innovation team on approaches to generative AI, said the students' reaction may point more to a sense of "surprise" that they felt unprepared to address a different kind of text.
"If this pushes us to think about how we can prepare students to have a set of critical skills that are useful to engage with AI tools and texts, then it's a good outcome," he said.
"There could be a sense of excitement - this is an inevitable future, and we're witnessing a major transition.
"Right now ... educational institutions are catching up - while debates are being had about whether and how teachers can use AI in classrooms, students are not getting opportunity to practice analysis."
Miller said the image had the "hallmarks" of AI, which could be the intention of the artist or the result of using an AI-generative program.
Regardless, he said it was "inevitable" AI-produced texts would be part of the world students lived and work in, citing artists such as Jazz Money exploring the relationship between AI and ethics.
"Questions of authorship, meaning and identity are the same if human generated or AI," he said. "Education has to keep up."
On a community page for Australian teachers, one user encouraged readers to file a formal complaint to Nesa for the probable use of AI.
"English is a subject hinged upon finding deeper meaning in texts, how are HSC students supposed to find deeper meaning in something where no deeper meaning is possible?" they wrote.
Others disagreed, arguing that if it was AI-generated it would have been an appropriate image in the context if it was labelled correctly, rather than as a photograph.
"It's really rather timely and young people should have a lot to say about it," one user wrote.
Elsewhere on the exam, American-Argentinian writer Hernan Diaz appeared in prose, as did Australian writer Kate Morton with an extract from her latest novel, Homecoming.
Young adult bestseller John Green appeared in the nonfiction section with an excerpt from his collection of essays, The Anthropocene Reviewed, as did UK author and journalist James Vincent for his exploration into measurement - Beyond Measure.