UC Berkeley professor admits using AI to help write viral math op-ed

Zvezdelina Stankova, a mathematics professor at UC Berkeley, has admitted to using artificial intelligence to assist in writing a viral op-ed regarding student preparedness. The article, which gained significant online traction, argued that the University of California’s decision to eliminate standardized testing has led to a decline in admission standards, forcing professors to teach remedial middle-school-level math to college students.

Stankova told the student newspaper The Daily Californian that AI was used during an intensive three-week collaborative editing process involving a faculty team and journalists. While she defended the piece as fundamentally human-created, noting that hundreds of person-hours were dedicated to the draft, the AI detector Pangram flagged the text as 33% AI-generated or AI-assisted.

Stankova, who helped organize open letters calling for the restoration of the SAT and ACT in admissions, noted that similar AI assistance was used in the editing of those letters. Her original op-ed highlighted a shift in student readiness, claiming that since the move to test-blind admissions, many students require instruction in basic algebra and fractions during calculus lectures.