The University of Melbourne Student Union condemns the use of students’ academic and creative work to train artificial intelligence (AI) models without students' informed consent.

It has recently been reported that Turnitin, an academic integrity platform used by the University of Melbourne to flag undisclosed AI use, has proposed a change to their End User License Agreement. 

The new terms would allow the use of student work submitted through its portal as training data for its own proprietary AI models. 

Students submit their work through Turnitin to meet academic requirements, not to have it utilised for AI development. 

The Turnitin system was implemented to protect students from intellectual theft by comparing our papers to those submitted at other institutions, but now they want to take our work and utilise it in ways many 
of us did not consent to.

We believe that universities are complicit in the unchecked rise and glorification of AI. 

Additionally, we oppose the proliferation of AI data centres throughout Melbourne, which bring serious health and safety risks to nearby residents and consume drastic amounts of water and energy.

UMSU calls on the University of Melbourne to ensure that student work is not being used to train AI models without our knowledge and consent.

Students deserve to be provided with transparency and control over how their work is used.