An investigation by Yak Media can reveal a business course used generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) to create an abundance of teaching materials.

Some students were shocked to discover their professor relied on GenAI to deliver lectures and didn’t think the course was worth the cost, but the university maintained the course was up to standards. 

The course, titled ‘Future of Work’, is a third-year course that teaches about technological changes in the workplace.

Blake Reilly, a social science student who completed the course last semester, said it was “littered in AI”.

“At a minimum, I’d say half of the course is AI,” he said

He said the course had a mixture of in-person and online components.

Mr Reilly often attended the two-hour face-to-face class to get the most out of the course, but was disappointed when he realised GenAI was used for teaching.

“Sometimes half the class time would be an AI lecture video and all the students would immediately pack up and leave,” he said.

Lecture videos featured AI-generated avatars who delivered lecture content throughout the semester.

“You go to university to learn stuff, and then you’re just being given these AI slop videos that aren’t even good,” he said.

“That’s the problem. It’s a worse-off experience.”

Yak Media contacted the course coordinator, Dr Wechtler, and asked how much of the course content was GenAI and why it was used.

She did not respond.

Yak Media used four AI-detection programs to test the required course readings, which resembled a textbook, for traces of GenAI.

All the detectors found that parts of the textbook showed signs of AI-generated text.

In the lecture slides, a watermark that reads “Made with Gamma” can be seen.

Gamma is a program that designs presentations and websites using GenAI tools.

GenAI watermark on a lecture slide.

A similar watermark can be seen in the course introduction video for a GenAI video generation program called HeyGen.

GenAI watermark on the course introduction video.

In the course materials, Dr Wechtler warned students against using AI tools to complete assignments.

“If you had to use AI to support your submission, make sure that the main input/ideas come from you so that your submission can be differentiated from the group,” Dr Wechtler wrote.

“Note that the series of very similar answers could be reported as a case of collective misconduct.”

The University’s Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Robert Greenberg, said in a statement to Yak Media the course was designed to show how education and the workplace are “rapidly changing with the growth of AI”.

“Lecturers were transparent about the use of AI, using it to improve the learning materials and to reinforce key concepts that were developed in-line with the University’s Generative AI Policy,” he said. 

The policy stated that the university will “look to harness [GenAI’s] potential in teaching and learning”.

The policy encourages staff to incorporate AI tools in the design of teaching sessions, materials and assessments where appropriate.

Mr Greenberg said the regular in-person workshops, group activities and guest speakers paired with the online content meant the course was still educational.

Another student, who asked not to be named, said most of her classmates were unaware of the “heavy reliance” of GenAI in the course.

“I only identified it after I noticed a pattern in the format, wording and sentence structures within the slides and most of the reading material,” she said.

“What’s the point in going to university and paying for courses if it’s just going to be all AI? You could just go to AI itself and ask it to deliver the course for free,” she said.

She said many of her peers were disappointed with the quality of the teaching in a course that costs $2,124 to take.

A New York Times report revealed that professors used AI tools to create teaching materials and grade student assignments.

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