For the past few months, Turnitin have decided to soft launch their new AI policy. They want to make significant changes to their EULA (End User License Agreement), so that students’ work submitted on the platform will be used to train Turnitin’s AI models. Without asking for consent of course. With more and more companies practically hurling money at AI models and companies now, it only makes sense that every student’s least favourite, and highly criticised, plagiarism checker has now invested in AI slop. But it’s certainly a little ironic that a California-based tech company estimated to be worth nearly $2 billion now wants to use student essays to train their AI for free, and that this policy change has come now that they have the monopoly on detection services for universities.
However, because of the obviously universal negative response from students across the UK and Ireland, Turnitin have graciously decided to delay this EULA change until September 2027, but is this really doing anything other than avoiding the, in my opinion extremely valid, criticism for a while?
Turnitin has seemingly only responded by silently introducing a Trust Center on their website in September, defining their AI principles and stating that they only use AI classifier models, and that student work has not been used to train generative AI. But I think this only skirts around how they seem to want to use students’ intellectual property to train their models without consent; and, with growing concerns from students about AI replacing jobs, especially graduate jobs and others mainly done by young people, the idea that a submission site mainly used by universities now wants to use the work of students for this purpose is more than a little dystopian. Plus, it’s even more ironic that a platform known for its AI checker for student work now wants to use said work to train their own AI. Surely after a while this can only end with an assortment of different AI models all feeding their own slop back to each other.
While Durham University has stated that protecting student data is of the upmost importance, there are no current plans for the university to stop using turnitin’s services, even though they are only postponing their new EULA plans, not scrapping them. While our Student Union Education Officer has urged the university to consider phasing out Turnitin and describes the university’s statement as ‘a measured approach,’ other UK universities have taken a much greater, and much more appropriate, stand against the Turnitin. The University of Southampton has decided not to renew its contract with the company this academic year, taking a firm stance against the new proposed AI policy.
If Turnitin are really set on introducing this new way to push universities into finding alternatives to their submission site, the company should at least allow students the option to not allow them to use their work, as all submissions should belong solely to the students. I believe that Turnitin should ask for permission before using any student work for their AI models, and that students are aware and allowed to opt out of having their work used in this way before they submit it.
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