The AI Rock and Hard Place. Online and in-person, artificial intelligence is presenting colleges with impossible choices.

The email dropped into my university account with a quiet ding, an inauspicious start to what would become an unwanted foray into the messy world of AI “false positives.” With the arrival of the short missive from my professor informing me that my essay had been flagged for AI use, I was caught up in what would became a weeks-long process to appeal and clear my name of alleged AI use on an assignment in my counseling graduate course. The ordeal thrust me into the university’s AI-detection administrative machine, where I joined the many others across higher education experiencing a...