Large Language Models (LLMs), Academic Writing, and Plagiarism: What's the Way Forward?

Venue: Global Auditorium (T3-F57)
Date: 9th April 2025
Time: 9:00 -11:00 AM

In this lecture demonstration, Dr. Poulomi Das interrogates the complex entanglements between Large Language Models (LLMs) and the evolving ethics of knowledge production and plagiarism in the age where AI-assisted text generation is commonplace. It critically evaluates the ethical considerations of AI use as a research or writing assistant, highlighting practices such as text mining, brainstorming, and peer ideation versus instances of contract cheating, intellectual complacency, and violation of copyright. The talk foregrounds concerns around algorithmic bias, hallucinations, model collapse, labor exploitation, and environmental costs, insisting that the core academic values of credibility, citationality, and care must not be surrendered.

About the Speaker:

Dr Poulomi Das is a performance and cultural ethnographer who is also trained in English literary studies, English language teaching (ELT) and translation. She has conducted extensive fieldwork and interacted intimately with the communities in the mangroves of the Bay of Bengal (on the Indian side) while writing her PhD thesis, “The Bonbibi Cult of Sundarbans: Expressions and Expectations in the Performances of Everyday Life” at the School of Arts and Aesthetics in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is currently working on the manuscript of her book on the Bonbibi Cult of Sundarbans. Apart from these research-level interventions, Dr. Das have been an educator for more than twelve years now. She has been curating courses and facilitating classes and stand-alone workshops related to English Communication, English for Academic Purposes, Research/Academic Writing and Critical Pedagogy for heterogenous classrooms at Ashoka University, IGNOU, Netaji Subhas Open University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi University, Ambedkar University, Delhi Skill & Entrepreneurship University, Tata Consultancy Services to name a few. She is deeply invested in understanding and experimenting with multi-lingual, multi-modal, care-infused pedagogies in her classrooms and beyond. She founded a vibrant and thriving writing community, The Writing Booth, and an initiative that promotes teaching and learning academic writing and communication skills, the LogosLab. While she advocates for collaborative, process-driven literacy skills, she also explores the possibilities and problems of the intersecting terrains of digital literacy, AI, and reading/writing across the curriculum. 

Know More