MUMBAI: The use of AI in the content creation process of a study material for the MA Psychology programme offered by Mumbai University’s Centre for Distance and Online Education (CDOE) has drawn criticism and ridicule from students on social media. The university, however, has claimed that the extent of such usage is less than 10% and is also “explicitly mentioned in the study material by the content developers”. It, however, has set up a committee to verify and examine the content.A student shared the MA psychology semester IV study material for Social Problems (Skills and Intervention), with a caption alleging that ‘MU is now using ChatGPT to generate content for CDOE psychology students’ stating why students are unemployed.The study material mentioned that ‘the content was developed under the academics supervision of H Naik using AI-based technologies’.MU, in a statement, however, claimed, “It has been clarified that the use of these AI tools was limited to purposes such as grammatical correction, linguistic refinement, improving coherence and readability of the content, and providing editorial assistance. The extent of such usage is stated to be less than 10 per cent, in accordance with prevailing acceptable norms and guidelines, including those issued for research proposals by the UGC,” clarified the MU statement. It also clarified that the material prepared for this programme is in the form of a self-learning guide and is not considered a book.However, in order to conduct a thorough verification and objective examination of all aspects of the matter, the CDOE has constituted a committee. The committee is currently undertaking the necessary inquiry, and further action is being pursued accordingly.
