The provost of Dartmouth College stepped down on Wednesday following a faculty committee’s findings that he had used artificial intelligence to significantly modify his writing, including a guest piece published in The Washington Post.
Santiago Schnell’s resignation was confirmed by Dartmouth College President Sian Leah Beilock, who released a statement regarding the situation. She stated that, “I expect our senior leaders to hold themselves to the highest standards. Out of respect for his colleagues and the institution, Santiago has resigned as provost and is leaving the university. This was his decision. We remain grateful for his leadership and wish him well.”
This turn of events came after the publication of an October 27 memorandum, which discussed the outcomes of a faculty-led investigation into Schnell’s writing practices.
The memo indicated that Schnell had, in fact, “used AI to meaningfully alter his writing in violation of at least one publication’s AI use and/or disclosure policy, failed to disclose his AI use in stark violation of a national newspaper’s stated policy, was not transparent about his AI involvement, and did not meet the standards outlined by Dartmouth’s Code of Ethical Conduct, the Academic Honor Principle, and Geisel’s Policy on Expectations for Professionalism for Faculty, Non-Faculty Academics, and Staff.”
An opinion column from August 9, ascribed to Schnell, titled “Universities are fighting AI cheating. But there’s a deeper problem,” was found to be completely written by AI, according to a report from Semafor.
Semafor utilized an AI detection tool named Pangram to examine various guest columns in the opinion sections of notable publications like The Washington Post, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
He stated, “I wrote this essay based on my own thinking. Then, I used ChatGPT to refine a few arguments, check for grammatical errors, and submit it to the Washington Post,” adding that his piece had gone through several rounds of edits by the publication. (RELATED: Tech Giant Floats Bill That Would Let Feds Step In Only When More Than 50 Lives Are On The Line)
After the Aug. 26 investigation by Semafor, Dartmouth’s student-run paper, The Dartmouth, conducted its own review of Schnell’s writings before and after November 2022, when ChatGPT became publicly accessible. Their findings indicated that Schnell’s works prior to 2022 were entirely “human-written,” whereas most of his pieces from this year were likely composed of around “96% AI-generated” content, according to the results produced by Pangram.
Schnell referred to himself as a “mathematical biologist” on his LinkedIn page, where he discussed his work teaching mathematics, biomedical data science, and biochemistry and cell biology at Dartmouth College.
The news of Schnell’s voluntary resignation coincides with a three-day conference centered around AI taking place at the college.
