University Integrity Officer Used Hidden AI to Defend AI in Universities

Cath Ellis, Western Sydney University's quality and integrity chief, used Microsoft Copilot to write a newspaper opinion piece defending AI in universities—without telling the publisher or readers. She fed 40,000 words of her research into the AI tool. The irony is sharp: Ellis oversees academic honesty standards that increasingly require AI disclosure. Mainstream media opinion sections, where her piece appeared, have no such rules.