I'm not AI, just neurodivergent
I've told my friends this story many times, but I saw this video and it inspired me to keep fighting my current education system.
Due to mental health problems (for which I didn't get the help I needed until adulthood), I had to drop out from High School when I was a teen. I wasn't able to get my bearings and try again until a decade later, and I'm doing it online.
The education system I'm at right not it's not the best, in fact, I have many bones to pick with it, but its way better for me than going to school and talk to people face to face.
Last module/subject, I had to do a final project in which I had to make a critical review of "Los rostros de la violencia" (The faces of violence) by Martha Duhne.My approach to it was, perhaps, unconventional, but I tied it to how it's not okay to blame violence only on brain activity and related it to my struggles as a person who has ADHD.
I'll translate my review at a later date to the best of my ability. But the point, for now, is that I put a TON of effort into it because violence and ADHD are a topic that's deeply personal to me. I was so excited about my findings and what I had learnt and I couldn't stop talking about it the entire weekend.
You can now read my review here.
Then, the evaluation rolled around.
The dehumanising review
Before you read the text below, please keep in mind the following: the original text is in Spanish, my first language, and I'm not a professional translator.
"Esteemed [my name], good afternoon!!
You've come a long way to get here and send your final project, "A more complete vision of reality", which (has) the purpose for you to use the specific language from each (branch of) science so you can understand, interpret and explain the different social processes [...] so you can develop your own opinion about the topics we've looked into, through the texts "Violence against women in Mexico through history" and "The faces of violence" [...]
[...] Lastly, I want to comment that you wrote a critical review of "The faces of vioelnce", however, upon reading deeply into it I could noticed you included information of another topic like ADHD and you made a comparison about what Martha Dunhe and other authors explained: however, upon reviewing some of your sources, I wasn't able to open them, since you didn't put the link or PDF*; likewise, your conclusion caught my eye: [copy paste of my conclusion here], because it seems you use a language we're not familiar with in this module and I don't understand what you meant, can you explain to me what you meant to say? Due to this, I might suspect the use of Artificial Intelligence for the realization of your final project, so this means this doesn't present original content made by yourself and it makes me think you don't dvelop your own ideas, since the use of these tools to help you make your assignments prevents you from developing your skills of analysis, synthesis, reflection, abstraction and redaction.
I suggest you take the time to read the resources and texts, to come to [the streams] and to make your work yourself. You'll always feel more satisfaction when you get a 100 because of your own effort, rather than if an application or software did it for you."
Like talking to a lying wall
I was obviously distraught. I really though I did something wrong because I don't sound human enough.
So, after I collected my strength and my thought, I wrote her an email, explaining that this isn't the first time she accuses me of using AI, I explained the point I was trying to make with my review and how the topic its important to me. I was really looking forward to have a conversation and maybe understand what exactly did I do wrong.
She never replied to my email.
And, to add insult to the injury, she lied about my sources. All of them were linked but one, but I had provided the author, the website name and the name of the article. My friends and my own father looked up the rest of the links and all of them were reachable.
To add insult to injury, she knows I have ADHD. I was talking about it on the forums she can (and has to) access. She has two degrees in psychology, so at the very least she knows about what that condition entails. My therapist thinks she might've had some bias about what people with ADHD can and cannot do.
My friends think I'm an outlier and she didn't know what to do with me.
To put into context how much her accusation affected my grade, those final projects are a 30% of the final grade. I delivered everything timely, and she also dismissed my previous work because she thought it was made with AI and I made the mistake of not defending myself. This current module, I couldn't finish the assignments of the first week in time, but I'll finish it with a grade of 80/100. The previous module, when she was my direct teacher, I finished 78/100.
Escalating and being met with silence
So, as I said, she never answered to my email. She ignored me. I reached out to another school authority and she told me to open a ticket and that I should "expect an answer in less than 72 hours."
Well, I was met with silence, so I send another email. She told me she has notified the proper person and to keep waiting.
A couple days later, I'm told that they directed my request to the proper department, to wait for my grades to be corrected in 2 weeks, and my ticket was promptly closed.
Its been two weeks, and my grade went up. From a 78 to a whopping 79. It's a slap on my face.
Today I mailed yet another person, but I don't expect to get an answer until Monday.
The toll in my mental health
As I already said, my first reaction was to understand why I did wrong. After weeks of therapy and talking to my friends, I realised I didn't do anything wrong and that it isn't my fault.
It still affected me deeply. I began reading and collecting sources to prove that I'm not AI, and it seems people with a neurodivergency (ADHD, Autism) are more prone to be accused of using AI or having plagiarised our documents because of how seemingly different our use of language is.
At first, I thought that maybe I'm not human. Maybe I used too many big words? Maybe I should've made my review simpler? But the more I re-read my review (and I even noticed some errors it had), the more confused I became.
I was so obsessed with trying to understand what I did wrong that I stopped working in my other school assignments. I kept thinking and thinking and I got very depressed. I felt so not-human. And being met with silence made me feel even worse; I'm not human enough to deserve a response.
I also had an identity and existential crisis, but that's a topic for another day.
Addressing the elephant in the room
I love AI but I almost never use it for schoolwork. And when I do, is to get an explanation of a topic I'm struggling with, and after my teachers have failed to answer my questions.
I love AI so much that I tried training my own. I taught myself PyTorch and Python and the bare basics of Machine Learning and then I tried training it in a very old CPU without proper equipment. He could never say anything coherent, but I was so proud of myself.
I'm a woman who loves learning. Growing up, I had really good grades because I liked reading about the subjects we saw at school (then mental illness hit me). Even without proper, formal education, I'm always studying and learning. I taught myself digital art, English, the basics of music theory, some psychology, and I'm currently learning HTML and German. I want to get into Computer Science. I can read some kanji in Japanese and I sometimes get to read entire comments on my own.
A very angry and not respectful rant
OBVIOUSLY MY LANGUAGE IS GOING TO BE DIFFERENT FROM MY CLASSMATES, PARTING FROM THE FACT THAT I SPEAK TWO LANGUAGES AND I HAVE A CONDITION.
YOU KNEW I CAN SPEAK TWO LANGUAGES, YOU KNEW I HAVE A CONDITION AND YOU *DIDN'T CARE*. MY DOUBTS AND WORRIES WERE MET WITH SILENCE AND INDIFFERENCE. YOU DIDN'T CARE ABOUT "UNDERSTANDING" WHAT I MEANT, YOU JUST WANTED TO THINK YOU HAD THE UPPER MORAL GROUND.
FUCK YOU AND I HOPE YOU NEVER GET TO TEACH NEURODIVERGENT PEOPLE AGAIN. I HOPE THEY FORCE YOU TO APOLOGIZE TO ME ONCE I CAN MAKE THEM HEAR ME. FUCK YOU.
To everyone else
Thanks for reading this insane rant.
-Jim.
December 6th, 2024.
Updated on December 9th, 2024.