Reading Impression Contest Revised Application Guidelines Due to Concerns About AI Abuse

The National Association of School Libraries, which organizes the reading essay contest for elementary, junior high, and high school students, is concerned that essays created by abusing AI = artificial intelligence will be submitted, so it has decided to revise the application guidelines for the next fiscal year and add a provision that plagiarism or inappropriate citation may be excluded from the screening and may be effectively disqualified.

The National Youth Reading Essay Contest is a reading essay contest with a history of more than half a century, and applications are accepted through schools from elementary school to high school, and awards are given every year.

According to the National Association of School Libraries, which organizes the competition, in response to the expansion of the use of interactive AI that can generate text, we have been considering the application guidelines for the contest since the end of last year, and as a result, we have decided to revise the application guidelines because concerns about the misuse of AI cannot be dispelled.

Specifically, we will add a provision that "if there is plagiarism or inappropriate quotation, etc., it may not be subject to review."

It means that it will be applied when the sentence generated by AI is quoted as it is and the author himself / herself approves the use of AI.

On the other hand, there is no problem with using AI for proofreading.

The new application guidelines will be applied from next year's competition, and will be announced on the website after the 1st of next month.

Expert: "A certain level of understanding, and consideration so as not to be suspected"

Professor Ichiro Sato of the National Institute of Informatics, who specializes in informatics, which studies the relationship between humans and AI, said, "Relying on AI does not fit the purpose of the Reading Essay Contest, which is to help students experience the joy of reading books and nurture their thinking skills and humanity through books. In that sense, restricting the use of AI is understandable to a certain extent. On the other hand, it is not possible to tell whether AI was used or not just by looking at the text, and it is important to be careful not to arouse suspicion on the applicant. I think it will be necessary in the future to clarify the scope of AI that can be used and the scope of prohibition."