AI in Academia: Problems and risks that can get you into trouble

The phenomenon of so-called hallucinations in large language models is a state in which the model generates information that sounds completely plausible, but is in fact a complete fiction.

Where does AI generate the most crap?

• Law and Administration (e.g. Faculty of Law and Administration of the University of Warsaw): AI mixes repealed regulations with current ones, invents paragraphs and refers to non-existent judgments of the Supreme Court.
• Medicine and Pharmacy (WUM): Generates incorrect dosage of drugs, makes up the names of clinical trials, and assigns symptoms to the wrong disease entities.
• Engineering and Mathematics (Warsaw University of Technology): Creates seemingly correct transformations of mathematical formulas, in which it smuggles in erroneous logical transitions.
• Economics and Finance (SGH): It provides fictitious statistical data from the Central Statistical Office (GUS) or Eurostat on inflation or GDP from previous years.

When should you absolutely NOT USE AI in college? (Prohibition List)

Using AI in the wrong place can result in legal consequences. Here are the areas where the use of AI tools is strictly prohibited:

1. Writing diploma theses and credit projects

Giving the work generated by the AI as your own is a crime of extorting a certificate of untruth (attestation of your own authorship) and a violation of the Study Regulations. Instead, there is a risk of expulsion from the university with the rigor of immediate enforceability.

2. Uploading teaching materials to external models

Uploading slides, scripts or original exam tasks leading to tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Notion AI violates the university’s copyright. These materials are the intellectual property of the lecturers.

3. Taking online tests and colloquia

Using extensions for browsers that automatically take tests on university platforms (e.g. Moodle / e-UW) is treated as cheating on an exam. These platforms record response times, card switching, and unusual click patterns.

How to legally and safely use AI for learning for students in 2026/2027?

AI isn’t an evil in itself – it’s a powerful tool if you’re using it as a personal tutor rather than a “surrogate brain.”

Allowed and highly effective applications of AI:

• Explaining difficult concepts using the “Feynman” method: You can ask the model: “Explain to me the concept of quantum physics / game theory as if I were 12 years old.”

• Language and grammar correction: Use AI to check typos, punctuation, and improve fluency in your handwritten text.

• Generating flashcards and control questions: You upload your own vetted notes and ask the AI: “Create 10 test questions based on the text below so I can test my knowledge before the session.”

• Structure (Outline) Suggestions: A request for a hint on what subtopics should be included in a paper on a given topic.

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Comparison Table: Good vs. Good Misuse of AI in college

Legal and academic consequences – what are the risks for unauthorized use of AI?

Universities in Poland have adapted their regulations to the challenges of generative artificial intelligence. The consequences of academic fraud are divided into three levels:

• Unsatisfactory grade in the subject: A lecturer who detects that the assignment was written by AI has the right to issue an unsatisfactory grade without the possibility of correction in the first term. This means a paid condition or the need to repay the ECTS deficit.
• Disciplinary proceedings: The case goes to the Disciplinary Ombudsman for Students. The student is called to an audition during which they must defend their thesis – answer questions from the content, explain the methodology used, and present the history of file editing (e.g., the history of changes in Google Docs or Word).
• Expulsion from the university and annulment of the diploma: If the fraud concerns a diploma thesis (bachelor’s, engineer’s, master’s), the Rector issues a decision to remove them from the list of students. Importantly, according to Polish law, if the use of AI in a diploma thesis comes to light even years after the defense, the university has a legal obligation to annul the issued diploma.

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How does ChatGPT really work? Why the “smart” model doesn’t really know what it’s typing

To understand why using AI in college can be dangerous, you need to understand one basic thing: ChatGPT, Claude, or any other large language model (LLM) has no knowledge, awareness, or reason. He does not know what law, physics or medicine are.

From a computer science and math standpoint, ChatGPT is simply an extremely advanced version of word hints (autofill) on your phone.

Analogue for a layman: Imagine a parrot in a library

Imagine a super-parrot that has read the entire University Library in Warsaw (BUW), the entire Polish Internet and millions of books.

• The parrot does not understand a single word of what it has read.

• However, he knows with mathematical precision that after the word “Rzeczpospolita” with a probability of 89% there is the word “Poland”, and after the word “Sentence” there is the word “exam”.

• When you ask her a question, the parrot is not “looking for the answer in her head”. Instead, it enumerates a live sequence of the most likely words that should follow each other based on the statistics collected earlier.

Why does AI optimize “probability” rather than “truth”?

This is the key difference that students are raving about. The language model is not programmed to provide truthful information. It is programmed to generate text that sounds believable and smooth to the human ear.

If you ask AI about a little-known historical fact, the model won’t answer “I don’t know.” The mathematical mind of the model will create a string of words that structurally looks like the correct answer, but contains completely made up names, dates, and places.

Why are mathematics, logic, and footnotes a trap for language models?

Understanding the mathematical nature of AI explains why AI is so “lectured” in science subjects and in writing scientific papers.

1. Why is AI wrong in simple math and logic?

The language model does not have a built-in calculator (unless it uses external plugins). When you tell it to solve a complicated differential equation at the Warsaw University of Technology, the AI does not “count” the result.

He remembers what similar equations looked like in his training set and guesses the next digit. That is why the result can be drastically wrong, even though the whole argument along the way looks professional and logical.

2. Where do fictitious bibliographic footnotes come from?

When you ask the AI: “Give me 5 scientific articles from the bibliography for my thesis in economics at SGH”, the model performs a simple calculus of probability:

• He knows what a valid footnote looks like: [Nazwisko Autor] + [Tytuł] + [Nazwa Czasopisma] + [Rok] + [Rocznik/Strony].

• Instead of searching a real library catalog, the AI puts together a footnote from random elements: it takes the real name of a famous professor, adds a title that sounds logical in the field, and randomizes the journal’s name and year.

• Result: You get a perfect-looking footnote for a book that… it was never written.

The Problem of False Positives – How to prove to the Disciplinary Committee that you wrote yourself?

One of the biggest problems of the current academic year 2026/2027 is the phenomenon of false accusations from AI detectors (the so-called False Positives).

Detectors used at universities work on the same statistical principle – they study, m.in, the so-called commonness and predictability of style (entropy). If you write very correctly, use simple sentences, formal vocabulary, and avoid emotions (which is the norm in scientific papers), the detector can consider your own text to be AI-generated!

How to build an “Audit Trail” when writing a paper?

If you want to be 100% sure that in the event of a false accusation from your supervisor or JSA, you will defend yourself at the university, you need to keep digital evidence of the text creation process:

• Write only in the cloud with version history enabled: Use Google Docs or Microsoft Word on OneDrive. These editors save every change, edit, paragraph deletion, and sentence addition in real time. If your supervisor accuses you of using AI, you open the version history and show how line by line, for 3 months, you wrote the entire work.
• Avoid pasting large blocks of text at once: If you’re writing a rough draft in a separate file and pasting a finished chapter (e.g., 10 pages at once) into your work, it looks like you’ve copied text from ChatGPT to the editor. Write directly in the target file.
• Keep source files and scans: Keep all the PDF articles you’ve used in a single folder on your computer or in the student360 cloud , along with circled text snippets.

Data privacy and scientific leaks – the hidden risks of uploading works to AI servers

When you paste text into free versions of popular AI tools, you need to keep in mind the terms and conditions that you accept. In most free services, everything you type in the chat window becomes training material for subsequent versions of the model.

Real threats for students and young scientists:

• Research and patent data leak: If you are working on a new metal alloy or a unique algorithm at the Warsaw University of Technology and paste a description of research into AI with a request to improve your English – you have revealed a research secret. You may lose the ability to patent the results or be held accountable by the grant manager.

• Violation of GDPR regulations: Uploading questionnaires with personal data, patients’ medical histories (at the Medical University of Warsaw) or financial data of companies (at the Warsaw School of Economics) to AI is a direct violation of the Personal Data Protection Act.

How do I disable model training on your data?

If you need to use AI to correct your own text, always go to the Privacy Controls in the app in question and turn off the Model Training / Data Controls -> Improvement for Everyone -> OFF option.

Artificial intelligence is a statistical tool, not a mine of objective truth. To safely go through studies in the 2026/2027 academic year:

• Remember that AI guesses the most likely words instead of verifying facts and patterns.
• Treat every piece of information, legal provision, number, and footnote generated by AI as a potential error for absolute verification in real sources.
• Write your work in editors with version history enabled so that you have iron proof of creating the text yourself in case of false accusation from AI detectors.

Frequently Asked Questions About AI in College

1. Can anti-plagiarism programs (JSAs) see texts generated by ChatGPT?

Yes. The Uniform Anti-Plagiarism System (JSA) used at Polish universities uses advanced algorithms that detect synthetic patterns, repetition of phrases and a uniform language structure characteristic of LLM models.

2. What if the AI detector falsely accuses me of using AI (False Positive)?

Stay calm. AI detectors are not the final piece of evidence in the light of the law. Always keep your file editing history (e.g., in MS Word or Google Docs), early drafts, handwritten notes, and the sources you’ve used. The presentation of the history of the creation of the document completely clears the victims.

3. Can I use AI to correct spelling mistakes in my work?

Yes. The use of linguistic, punctuation and stylistic proofreading tools (e.g. LanguageTool, Grammarly or spell checker) in handwritten text is acceptable and treated as traditional editorial correction.

4. Does the professor have the right to ask me questions about my work on the exam to check if I wrote it myself?

Yes. The lecturer or the Examination Committee has the full right to conduct the so-called “defence of the credit thesis” and ask detailed questions about the methodology, quotations and conclusions. Lack of knowledge about one’s own work is grounds for rejecting it.

5. What AI tools are safe for finding real scientific literature?

Academic search engines based on scientific indexes, such as Consensus.app, Elicit.com or Google Scholar, are safe tools. They refer only to verified, published scientific articles with DOI numbers.

Artificial intelligence in the academic year 2026/2027 should be your assistant, not your substitute. To avoid problems at the university:

• Always verify sources: Never trust bibliography and figures provided by generative AI models.
• Write papers yourself: Use AI to create plans, generate test questions, and check grammar, but create the actual text yourself.
• Keep work documents: Keep files with edit history and working notes in case of plagiarism checks.

What to do now? Review your current assignments, make sure that all quotes and footnotes provided are from real-life books and scientific articles, and set up your secure learning organization system!