Adamari:​
“Howard (2000) proposed that plagiarism is “inherently indefinable” (p. 473), that it “eludes definition” (p. 474), and that we ought to discard the term entirely”. I feel like that is crazy to say. There is no way it can’t be defined. I think it can be simplified to not giving credit when using information from other people and passing off someone else’s work as your own. I think the examples define it well. I wouldn’t say it is indefinable, that is a little much. Even if you don’t fully know all the different things that fit under plagiarism, it still can be defined.

“There is no absolute or universally accepted definition of plagiarism. Cultural and contextual factors play a role in how we define and address misconduct.”Okay see this makes a little more sense. That some cultures see different things as plagiarism. But then, does respectful have a definition? Cultures have different ways of being kind and showing respect to each other. Can anything that involves what humans do be defined? I am asking the wrong questions, this isn’t really what the paper is about, but I think it is interesting to question definitions this way.

“The bounded nature of plagiarism definitions can serve as an impediment to deeper reflection about what it means to engage in ethical decision-making in and beyond the classroom. Academic integrity
serves as a foundation for ethical decisions at school, at work, and in life.” I guess so. Raising good people can start with academic integrity. Though sometimes you really are struggling with one section in a class and don’t want to fail, so you cheat because that one section was super hard. Doesn’t mean you will be a terrible person in life because you cheat once or twice. All the time, yeah you probably will suck as a human. I think there is a level to it. I also think cheating with AI is way worse than cheating back then. You had to be pretty creative and now it just takes quick searches. It is lazy now and way too easy. And doesn’t teach you anything at all. At least back then you learned how to be sneaky or something. Now it is so lame. Cheating now with AI makes you lame and lazy. I think cheating now will cause you to be lame and lazy in life, constantly using AI for things.

“Text generated by artificial intelligence tools is not static. It can be edited, revised, reworked, and
remixed. The result can be a product that is neither fully written by a human, nor by an AI, but one that is hybrid. Trying to determine where the human ends and where the artificial intelligence begins is pointless.” See this is why it makes you lame and lazy. I have forgotten to include this in my many yaps, but people CAN edit the AI junk they get. Which makes things funny. I have heard so many professors complain that they get the random “if you want I can do this to the prompt” type of AI stuff at the bottom of assignments. They are so bad at cheating they don’t even edit the bottom AI garbo. Back when I was in middle school and high school, when people cheated off of each other you heard the common “change the words around”. Sometimes you would hear a “I’m not an idiot, of course I am changing how things are said”. Maybe even a “I will get some wrong on purpose”. People were more creative with their cheats. Doesn’t make it right, but at least people knew to change things around. It is like people don’t even care if they get caught. They fully can change the words, use some of it but not all of it, yet they are so lazy it just gets submitted as a whole.

“This comes on the heels of numerous news stories about students being falsely accused of academic misconduct after teachers had used so-called AI textgeneration detection tools on students’ academic work.” This was a huge problem in the writing center, maybe still is. Entire classes were being failed because of it and they had to come to us. So many tutors had to sit and watch the students type and then send an email to the professor to prove it was done by the student and not AI. So much work for the students and tutors to prove that the kids didn’t use AI.

“Another tenet of postplagiarism is that human creativity is enhanced, not threatened by artificial intelligence. Humans retain their ability to be inspired and inspire others. We may even be inspired by artificial intelligence, but our innate human ability to imagine and create remains boundless and inexhaustible.” So we finally get some good news that humans will keep inspiring others. That is great to hear! I dislike hearing that we may also be inspired by AI. Except those people who are inspired to do AI things themselves. The people copying AI art and making it human is cool to me. Glad to know our future isn’t as doomed as we thought. Maybe still doomed, but not that doomed.

“Past generations have worried that technologies such as radios or smartphones would diminish our ability to think, but there is no empirical evidence to support such an assertion. There are complexities and nuances to human intelligence, creativity, and relationships that may never be captured by artificial intelligence”. That is a good point, that every generation thinks the next one is too different with their technology. However, I think this is the biggest jump. Answers were easier to get before than past generations, but now with the ChatGPT nonsense we are really in a tough spot. Brainrot is real guys. I see that the older generations were concerned about the same things, but this is a little bit crazier to me. And, it should be noted that the tech keeps advancing. Yeah sure they were concerned about sound machines (radios) impacting our thinking. But we got bots now so…

“Overcoming barriers and advancing equity are fundamental to postplagiarism precisely because ethics and integrity are of utmost importance”. I agree. It is nice to overcome barries but it should be done in the right way. Or in the best way possible. Nothing will ever go smoothly or to plan, but we can always try our best to not be rude rats. We should overcome barriers with ethics in mind and not just do it to do it.

“Humans can retain control over what they write, but they can also relinquish control to artificial intelligence tools if they choose. Although humans can relinquish control, they do not relinquish responsibility for what is written”. SO TRUE. Retweet. This goes to the editing thing. You have a lot of say in what you submit. The AI might give you the words, but you turn the assignment in. You press the submit, and that is no accident. You need to take responsibility for that. I think once people know about the dangers of AI it is on them if they use it. Bad on you of course cause it is terrible, you need to take some responsibility for it though. As you put the prompt into the AI, you copied, you pasted, you submitted. However, this is like a drug right. SO, I think higher ups needs to be blamed too. For making it easy access, open to all, in everything we use. It is on them too, not just the users, for some people out there aren’t aware of how bad it is. Not everyone is in our class.

“If students cannot demonstrate their own learning, then there may be reason to question whether academic integrity has been violated. In turn, educators have a responsibility to develop assessment tasks that
provide students with opportunities to demonstrate their learning”. I agree with this, though it is hard to get them to demonstrate their own learning. In my World Literature class here at Kean, my classmates said I was getting bullied by the professor. She was ON my case for my in person stuff being different than my at home stuff. She didn’t really give us any time to work on things in class, but at home I could get as much time as possible. I could also type at home, in class had to be done on paper. Every class she would come real close to my desk and talk to me about my work. This was before I knew about ChatGPT, so don’t think I cheated on my at home stuff. I would never, I love writing. But that is my point, that the students might work better in different conditions and that doesn’t mean they are cheating. People just work differently. I work better at home than I do at school. I hate working on things in the class, I prefer my usual work space at home. So, it will be hard to see if students have learned, for they might be so used to one setting and not the other.

“If history is any indication, when neuro ed tech arrives at our classrooms, it is reasonable to expect that neither educators, nor policy makers will be able to curtail or control its use, at least to the extent that they might desire.” Also very true. No one really knew what to do with AI for the longest time. I still think the rules are a little up in the air, it depends on the professor and the class. All of that is a little scary though, for this has shown there isn’t much stopping newer tech from taking the world by storm before people realize it is bad and have time to stop it.

Keslande:
“Users can explore the repository by reading level, language, and theme, and once they select a story, they can click through illustrated slides (each as if it were the page of a book) in the selected language (there are also bilingual options, where two languages are shown side-by-side, as well as download and read-along audio options)”. This sounds super cool. I think seeing the two languages at once could help some families that speak multiple languages.

“A.I.-assisted translation elements incorporated in digital libraries like StoryWeaver can bring more languages into conversation with one another—but the tech is still new, and it depends on data that only speakers of underserved languages can provide. This raises concerns about how the labor of the native speakers powering A.I. tools will be valued and how repositories of linguistic data will be commercialized.” A good point to make, that it depends on someone who speaks the language to help the translation elements. This makes me wonder if there are human errors or some things that can’t be translated well. I have always questioned how much could be translated. I don’t think cultural things translate well, like some stories that are unique to a culture or memes. There was a Star Trek episode on this (I was forced to watch for a class) that went over a culture that only spoke in references, so their universal translator “worked” but they didn’t understand since it was all unique references. Goes to my yap on discourse analysis, if a discourse has specific lingo it can be hard to understand if you aren’t in that discourse.

“Instead, it assists humans with hints in the language they’re translating into. For example, if you begin typing, “It is raining” in the target language, the model working on the back-end supplies “tonight,” “heavily,” and “cats and dogs” as options for completing your sentence, based on the context and the previous word or set of words.” So, like the AI things we have now. The auto completes on texts or emails. They just put that into the translation thing.

“However, both these sources—according to Microsoft’s researcher Bali—are too specific, and do not encompass a wide enough range in terms of topics and vocabulary to be properly representative of human speech. (This is why StoryWeaver isn’t a good source for training data, either, because sentences in children’s books are fairly simple and the reading corpus only goes up to fourth-grade reading levels.)” And there is one of the problems. It can’t do how people speak. It will cover the basic stuff I think but it won’t really cover the language. I think another problem with this is how people write stories isn’t how people speak. Story structures are different than everyday talking to people. I think that can play a factor in this too, that kid stories are told in a specific way and languages might not easily translate to that structure or format, or that the kids will learn the language in that kid story way but not the talking way.

“But they were paid only $243 for the project, or less than 1 cent per English word, divided three ways. According to Microsoft’s Bali, models need 100,000 paired sentences to start generating acceptable translations.” The other problem with this. The people aren’t getting paid well. Though, that is a problem that could be found anywhere. However, I think with the native speakers being so important to how this works, and that this is mostly for their kids or family, they should really work on getting the money they deserve for this project is nothing without their language.

“If our language dies, we will lose them. I want to collect these words before they disappear.” And that is the sad part about languages and cultures. If there aren’t enough people carrying it on, it goes away. And with how America is, making everything “American”, things get lost easily. On my father’s side, his great grandmother was fully Polish. Didn’t speak any English. She even lived in his house. But he doesn’t speak any Polish. As kids, my grandmother (his mom) would try to teach us very simple phrases. I don’t remember the like three things she told us. An entire language side of my family was gone so quickly because no one practiced or really taught anyone. Languages do die, and that is one of the very sad things about the world.

The Storyweaver article raises several significant concerns. In addition to the requirement that translation AI models need over 100,000 translations before producing acceptable results, there are substantial labor costs involved. It is unsurprising to me that individuals providing data for these AI models are not being compensated fairly. Companies such as Outlier AI similarly contract people to translate for AI models at minimum wage. However, the article’s statement that some individuals were paid less than minimum wage is particularly troubling. Although these workers are from other countries, this practice constitutes exploitation through low wages. I believe that such exploitation has always existed, but it appears to be intensifying. Once AI models are sufficiently trained, positions that could have provided stable employment for translators are rapidly disappearing. This is currently happening in my school district, and at my mother’s company. Executives are very excited about these new AI tools. However, I keep telling my mother that these tools are designed to reduce labor costs, not to increase convenience. One day her team will be laid off, and then it will be her. With that being said, translator roles are being eliminated nationwide. These models are not primarily developed for convenience; rather, they are designed to reduce labor costs and thereby increase shareholder value.

In response to Sarah Elaine Eaton’s article, I would like to propose a potential solution, though I anticipate it would be met with considerable resistance. The widespread use of artificial intelligence to generate term papers is a growing issue. Students at all educational levels, from K-12 to doctoral programs, are utilizing AI to complete their assignments. While this constitutes plagiarism and carries consequences, the scale of the problem has become overwhelming, making consistent enforcement unsustainable. Additionally, as much research has already been conducted, the risk of unintentional plagiarism has increased. At this stage, I believe that in certain fields, research should no longer be the primary focus. Instead, we should transition toward capstone-based dissertations and theses.

As someone currently in the classroom, I struggle to see the necessity of completing a purely research-based dissertation or thesis. These final program assessments should be more experience-based. This is not to say that research does not matter, because it absolutely does. However, we should be moving toward more experience-driven practices. Personally, I strongly dislike theses and dissertations and see them as an inefficient use of time. I believe this is one reason why students turn to A.I.; they simply do not find these projects meaningful. We need to transform these requirements into something more impactful than thousands of hours spent researching and writing without practical application. As hurtful as this may sound, if I was an administrator at any level, I would want my team members to be using experience-based practices that are backed up by research, not using research-based practices that are purely theory-based.

Song of the Day: oDsbm – WODS91

I will admit, reading the article “AI-generated contradictions for environmental democracy” was so well-written that I didn’t understand much of the big words involved. I did understand parts of it and agree that AI has major impacts on the environment which in turn impacts society down to a safety level. While my blog is posted after Sarah’s presentation, Sarah’s presentation really helped me understand the topic and article better. It’s almost sad to see people forget how beautiful the world is, and I will admit I forget at times too. But preserving nature and the environment is more than just it’s sight. It’s protecting the cycle humans are a part of. Without a place for nature to grow, the plants will struggle which will decrease eating for certain species which causes a chain effect for the whole cycle of animals. Not to mention plants are the literal reason we breathe.

Watching AI unfold in such a grave manner has been nothing short of unfathomable. I’ve gotten to thinking about how fast it dug its hands in everything. But then again, we’ve all known technology wasn’t the greatest thing for the environment. Far before AI. As a kid, I was really curious about the need for solar panels. Why some houses had them and why mine didn’t. I brought my concern to my parents, who quickly brushed me off by saying they’re too expensive… My curiosity didn’t end there. I found out about all the benefits and from then on, would count all the houses I saw with solar panels on any outing and would wonder why they made them so damn expensive. 

I’ve never seen Wall-E (going on my watchlist), but doesn’t the plot consist of humans turning Earth into a wasteland, then leaving? I think deep down, I know that’s where it’s always been heading; it’s just jolted up much farther than anyone could have suspected.​

It’s the AI revolution, after all… 

Two weeks ago I was talking to my sister and her boyfriend about AI. I went on this tangent about who owns what and what they gain and what it does to your brain and what it does to your parents electricity bill and what it does to the environment (the whole “water bottle” spiel), and I finished by telling them, “If you find yourself needing to use it, use Claud instead…”

This weekend, I overheard him talking about how easy it was to get his workout routine by asking ChatGPT and then went on to explain to my sister what questions and information you need to enter to get herself a perfect routine. I thought I really got through to them. I mean, they looked genuinely concerned, but no. And honestly, what can I do? People really don’t know what they’re signing themselves up for. They don’t understand gravity. And still, I understand them… It’s just how the system has been set up.

And well, of course it’s a democratic concern. I’d go far enough to say these companies have made a puppet out of democracy. They’re constantly platforming quibblers and putting an obscene amount of sparklers as the powerful walk on stage just to see how much can get through to the audience as plausible.

I’m a declared cynic. Not by choice, but because that’s the kind of mindset being a citizen of this world has led me to absorb. I like to think I know how people work.

At the end of the day, most people, in most circumstances, are not going to consider all the directions their bad decisions can take people other than themselves. As much as we hope they’ll someday do. They’ll swipe on some warping filter and get on with it. Or they’ll just avoid asking or looking into anything because, unlike the people who do know the scary facts, they don’t want to feel impending doom 24/7. 

And I’m not innocent. I’ve used these AI platforms outside of simple curiosity too. I’ve scrolled past news articles far too devastating for the sake of a “good state of mind”… Most people will opt into “technological optimism.” It’s an entirely frustrating conversation to have, because I think we all know where all this will eventually lead us. All we can do is (with composure) spew out all our knowledge about the cons, have hope, and try to be compassionate (although it’s hard… and not a right reserved for Aiden Cinnamon Tea).

“the prophecy of doom is to be given greater heed than the prophecy of bliss” (Jonas 1984, p. 31)… !!!

As for the short film, “Frames”… just the talk of government surveillance makes me feel really uneasy. It’s kind of baffling how someone’s relationship with technology can be so polarizing. We’re afraid of the implications that come with our government closely surveilling us, but seem optimistic about a world where our tech knows us so well, it lives all around us, conforming to our every need. Makes me think of  “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury. 

Anyway, looking forward to the conversation to be had in class… till then

Adamari Peralta 

4/1/2026

Scary!!! If there were any doubts of the power of AI in our lives and whether or not we are being watched, I think watching these short films might have cleared up that mystery. Most of us try to take necessary precautions to protect ourselves from having data collected on us. Unfortunately, we do not have control of every system, nor do we have the manpower to fully prevent it. In the short film, Frames, we can see how we are being monitored and not even be aware of it. Everytime we swipe that card, perform a google search, or simply have a conversation in our private space, there is always the risk of giving up more information than we intended to share. This reminds me of one of our class discussions when the Professor, and CJ talked about a couple situations that made them feel as though their conversations were being monitored. I remember a few years back when Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) wallets became extremely popular. Those are the wallets and purses that use electromagnetic shielding materials to supposedly protect your credit cards and other documents in your wallets from being scanned for financial gains and data collections. Although they were a bit more expensive than your average ones, people were buying them because they were willing to do anything to protect their privacy. As frightening as it may seem, we cannot stop living life, and they know it.

While listening to the radio on Sunday, I heard that ‘23 and me’ is going out of business. The  company is known for providing genetic ancestry history through saliva samples. What has consumers worried now is that whoever ends up buying the company, there’s the great possibility that their data will also be transferred. In an effort to protect its previous customers, 23 & is now urging everyone to delete all of their data, however, customers have doubts on whether or not they will still be protected if they do delete their personal data. It is unfortunate that we are living in a world where it’s almost impossible to shield and protect ourselves because we are overthrown by AI systems.

This weeks read and movie offered some interesting things to consider in regards to AI. First, “AI-generated contradictions for environmental democracy” provided some really nice insight on the major shortcomings surround tech companies and their rapid growth through new technologies. The author brought up the idea that democracy wasn’t really made with modern day issues in mind. With the way that many of out institutions are made up, (the laws, government, etc, none of them are really positioned to protect us from these companies from only working in their best interest. On the other hand, dispute the fact that many of these tech companies talk about making life better for their users, their practices in many ways hurt the environment and contribute to major social and economic issues for those same users. These companies are built for profits, not for out benefit. I felt that this article articulated this crazy dynamic in a nice and clear way. After reading, I’m kind of left with one question on my mind, “What’s the point in giving so much power to institutions that cannot address the the elephants that standing in the room with them”.

Frame

The short film, Frames was also an interesting watch. Despite its brief runtime, it definitely me something to think about. One thing that was on my mind was the reason behind the monitoring. The smart city can see everything, measure the weather, people’s income, scores their interactions and even gives live odds on if people will connect with each other. But in the end whats the point of it all. All of that information served no real purpose at the end of the day. All of it meant nothing and did not lead to people living better are being happier. The monitoring couldn’t even save a life if it had a chance. So in the end, whats the point of it all? Why have lenses everywhere if life ultimately stays the same.