Historically, students who wanted to harness the creative power of video might crib from an existing YouTube video or rip a movie clip to use in their presentation. Creatively inclined learners might even learn Final Cut Pro, but that was a painstaking, time-consuming undertaking.
Artificial intelligence has made it easier and more affordable than ever to create an original video. Synthesia is one of the leading platforms for businesses, students, and others who want to produce video content without hiring an entire creative team or spending weeks learning complicated video-editing software.
These kinds of video-production resources can also be powerful creative tools for university students, who might use Synthesia in presentations, courses involving film production, or perhaps even in extracurricular activities or their personal lives. In today’s climate, a student could face discipline for using Synthesia for academic or non-scholastic ends.
If you or your student is accused of academic misconduct, harassment, or violating any other school policy due to the use of Synthesia, don’t wait to call the LLF National Law Firm today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online. Our Student Defense Team can help with virtually any issue college students face.
The First Concern for Students Using Synthesia: Violating Academic Rules
Synthesia promises its users the ability to:
- Create “studio-quality videos”
- Simply input a written script that Synthesia will alchemize into a high-definition video
- Customize the look of the avatar featured in the video
- Dictate fonts and other stylistic features within the video
Synthesia will not create the sort of movie-like scenes you may have seen on social media (there are no explosions or action shots to be found on the platform). For students who want to create a straightforward video featuring a human sticking to a script—a prototype with many applications in university settings—Synthesia is a logical choice.
Yet, using Synthesia for any academic purpose might:
- Violate the guidelines for a specific assignment: If an educator did not intend for students to use Synthesia or any other AI-powered resource for a particular assignment, the student may be reprimanded if they do use AI.
- Clash with broader anti-AI policies: Professors and schools may have wide-ranging policies against students using AI for academic purposes. Creating a video using AI may fall within a gray area in such policies, though, especially if the student is using Synthesia in an elective manner to enhance their work.
- Cause a dispute between the student and teacher: Many cases of alleged academic misconduct arise from disagreements, miscommunications, and other instances where professors and students fail to be on the same page. For instance, if a student feels that the professor did not explicitly prohibit the use of Synthesia, they might disagree should the professor accuse them of breaking a rule.
Outside of serious film students, we can’t imagine that most learners would be scolded for using Synthesia. In fact, we’d expect some educators to praise students who are innovative enough to incorporate AI-generated video into their assignments, though there will undoubtedly be exceptions.
The Non-Academic Risks Associated with Synthesia AI Video Platform
Some AI-enabled platforms have a purely academic bent. Synthesia does not. While there are several clear uses for Synthesia in scholarly pursuits, students might also use the platform to:
- Create promotional or advertorial materials for Greek organizations
- Promote a club, organization, or student political campaign
- Play practical jokes on fellow students, professors, and administrators
- Produce content for social media
- Fulfill other purposes that don’t have an immediate academic purpose
A student’s sense of humor, or their perception of what is right and wrong, will not always align with a professor’s or administrator’s. This fact highlights how a student using Synthesia in a way they believe is innocent—creating a lighthearted video that features their professor’s avatar, for instance—could lead to them facing serious allegations of misconduct, including but not limited to harassment.
Is My University Actually Going to Jeopardize My Future Over an AI-Generated Video?
Yes, universities routinely take disciplinary action that:
- Immediately brands a student as a disciplinary problem, obliterating their good standing with the school, its professors, and its administrators
- May prevent the student from earning or maintaining certain scholarships or other forms of financial aid
- Could prevent the student from earning honors
- Can require the student to withdraw from organizations (like Greek life) that are a source of community and stability for them
- Significantly interferes with the student’s day-to-day life
- Prevents the student from being admitted to other schools or programs
- Diminishes the student’s image with prospective employers, which may directly harm the student’s professional ambitions
- May cause the student to be suspended or expelled (especially if the student has a preexisting disciplinary record), which causes its own cascade of secondary challenges
School administrators and professors may not view your case as “disciplining a student for creating a video with AI.” Instead, they may frame the matter in more general terms that exaggerate the severity of the situation—you might hear terms like “harassment” or “integrity violations” throughout the disciplinary process.
So, yes, you should accept the possibility that your school might take action that has a significant detrimental effect on you. You must also accept that sanctions as serious as suspension and expulsion may be more realistic than you want to believe.
Once you accept this, you can hire the LLF National Law Firm Team to ensure that your future is not ruined by the predicament you’re facing.
The LLF National Law Firm Team Will Hustle to Resolve the Problem and Protect Your Future
The steps ahead will depend on what, exactly, you or your student is being accused of. You might face a different process depending on whether you’re accused of academic misconduct or another type of wrongdoing. That said, many students who are accused of misusing AI-powered programs like Synthesia face:
- An investigation which is a high-risk period where everything the student says and does can be scrutinized
- The opportunity to accept discipline, which can be the right decision for some students, but warrants scrutiny and careful consideration (which we will provide)
- A hearing, which is likely if your school does not tender a disciplinary offer you’re willing to accept
- The need to appeal an adverse ruling
The LLF National Law Firm’s Student Defense Team will fight for the rights of university students, and we stand up for them as if they were our own loved ones.
We know what we’re doing, and there’s no other firm to retain when students find themselves in a difficult situation. Call the LLF National Law Firm Student Defense Team today at 888-535-3686 or contact us online.