What happened

The NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) included an AI-generated image in an English Higher School Certificate (HSC) exam on the subject of “texts and human experiences”.

Depicting a serene river scene, the image was created using voice prompts by German AI professional Florian Schroeder using OpenAI's ChatGPT and DALL-E 2 tools.

Asked to “analyse” the image's “deeper meaning” and “analyse the composer’s intent”, students quickly raised concerns about the image's authenticity, noting peculiarities that suggested it was AI-generated.

After initial denials, NESA confirmed the image's origin.

Why it happened

The controversy arose because students were tasked with analysing the image in relation to a written passage about farming, leading to confusion and frustration, with many students complaining that using AI-generated content without proper attribution undermined the integrity of their assessments. 

NESA responded by saying that students would be evaluated based on their responses to the question rather than the image's origin. 

However, educators expressed concerns about the lack of transparency regarding the use of AI in this instance and more widely in academic settings.