CoJ Case 071

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This article is part of the series:
Chamber of Justice
Cases


DB vs Nora Olen di Plagia #16574 was the seventy-first case tried by the Chamber of Justice. The sitting Justicar was Kamjin "Maverick" Lap'lamiz, the Left Hand of Justice was Ood Bnar, and the Right Hand of Justice was Vynn Salm.

Basic Case Information

Defendant

Charges

  • Thirty-Eight Counts: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(o) - Plagiarism
  • Thirty-Eight Counts: Violation of Covenant section 7.06(d) - Cheating and Exploitation

Verdict

  • GUILTY

Sentence

  • DEMOTION to Equite 1;
    • FORFEITURE of 35,000 XP as a result of the demotion;
  • DISQUALIFICATION from:
    • Celebrate the Enduring Spirit;
    • AVD:X Months Later;
    • AVD: Dirty Little Secret;
    • Reverse Chronology;
    • Dathomir Adventure: Collect Local Flora and Fauna;
    • And all associated fiction competitions identified within the charges;
  • FORFEITURE of all Crescents, Novae, Seals, word counts, and Society progress related to the 38 counts;
    • FORFEITURE of 6,392 XP as a result of the forfeited Crescents, Seals, and Society progress related to the 38 counts;
  • LETTER OF REPRIMAND applied to the member’s dossier;
  • STRICT PROBATION for 12 months in regard to promotions;
    • Promotions after 12 months will be staggered to grant 1 level every 3 months;
  • GENERAL PROBATION for 6 months;

Related News Post

Members of the Dark Jedi Brotherhood,

The Chamber of Justice has convened and issued a verdict in the pending case of DB v. Nora Olen di Plagia. Following an investigation, Nora Olen di Plagia was charged with thirty-eight counts of plagiarism and cheating.

Nora Olen di Plagia plead guilty to all charges and issued a heartfelt apology for her actions.

The detailed Verdict and Justicar's Opinion for the case can be found in the PDF file linked below. Please note that the written opinion is generally found on the page after announcement of the verdict.

The verdict was as follows:

Case #071 - DB v. Nora Olen di Plagia - Opinion PDF

Thirty-Eight Counts of Plagiarism: GUILTY Thirty-Eight Counts of Cheating: GUILTY

Sentence:

  • DEMOTION to Equite 1;
    • FORFEITURE of 35,000 XP as a result of the demotion;
  • DISQUALIFICATION from:
    • Celebrate the Enduring Spirit;
    • AVD:X Months Later;
    • AVD: Dirty Little Secret;
    • Reverse Chronology;
    • Dathomir Adventure: Collect Local Flora and Fauna;
    • And all associated fiction competitions identified within the charges;
  • FORFEITURE of all Crescents, Novae, Seals, word counts, and Society progress related to the 38 counts;
    • FORFEITURE of 6,392 XP as a result of the forfeited Crescents, Seals, and Society progress related to the 38 counts;
  • LETTER OF REPRIMAND applied to the member’s dossier;
  • STRICT PROBATION for 12 months in regard to promotions;
    • Promotions after 12 months will be staggered to grant 1 level every 3 months;
  • GENERAL PROBATION for 6 months;

It is the opinion of myself and the Chamber that Nora has a bright future in the Brotherhood and that this incident will not repeat itself in the future.

I strongly encourage you to read the Opinion PDF as I outline the research done by the Chamber related to detection of Artificial Intelligence and application of Chamber sentences in a post-XP Brotherhood.

Signed and sealed in Justice,

Kamjin "Maverick" Lap'lamiz

Justicar's Opinion

Facts

On February 29th, 2024 the Chamber received notice of a submission by Nora Olen di Plagia for the competition Celebrate the Enduring Spirit that appeared to be generated via Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. The Chamber ran the fiction through ZeroGPT and received a positive result for AI being utilized.

The Chamber proceeded to operate with the assumption that the AI detector was not accurate and tested via Quillbot and received a secondary confirmation of AI being present. After utilizing several additional detectors the Chamber was not convinced that the detectors were accurate.

To generate a comparison point, the Chamber sought prior fiction submissions by Nora Olen di Plagia to compare to the Celebrate the Enduring Spirit submission. This also flagged as AI detected. The Chamber next tested fiction written by themselves, other members who submitted to the Celebrate the Enduring Spirit competition, members of the Shadow Academy Department of Writing, and those who submitted co-authored fictions with Nora Olen di Plagia.

All other writers tested passed, as human, with no AI detected. The Chamber next tested a fiction by Nora Olen di Plagia submitted before November 30th, 2022, the date ChatGPT was released, and the results indicated it was written by a human.

At this time the Chamber was confident that the submission for Celebrate the Enduring Spirit was generated via AI and that the accuracy of the AI detectors was high enough to review submissions by Nora Olen di Plagia between November 30th, 2022 and February 29th, 2024.

The Chamber identified that thirty-seven additional submissions between February 8th, 2023 and February 29th, 2024 were generated by AI. As a result, charges were drafted and presented to Nora Olen di Plagia who, upon review, pleaded guilty to the charges as drafted.


Analysis

The Chamber set an important precedent in this case regarding investigating suspicion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) that we shouldn’t blindly trust in the AI detectors currently available. Ood Bnar, Left Hand of Justice, researched the varying degrees of accuracy being reported by AI detectors and the on-going debates amongst academia on how and when they can be leveraged.

If the submission for Celebrate the Enduring Spirit had tested positive but other submissions by Nora Olen di Plagia had tested as human or, based upon ZeroGPT’s display range, inconclusive the Chamber would have probably erred on the side of the member and recommended the particular submission be disqualified and consulted directly with the member that inconclusive results were found and to ensure that AI was either noted in their submission, if utilized to ‘polish’ their writing, or to clarify if their particular style was triggers AI detectors (an element Ood Bnar found in his research).

The confirmation point for the Chamber that AI was being utilized was in comparing fictions written by Nora Olen di Plagia before and after November 30th, 2022. There is a clear change in form, structure, and word choice before and after the introduction of ChatGPT. When viewed side-by-side it was clear that AI was being utilized.

Of note, the Chamber did review other submissions by Nora Olen di Plagia while we were forming our profile of her writing and we noticed AI being utilized in her reports. The Chamber wants to make clear that use of AI to write reports is permitted and would be considered a useful tool to help new leaders craft updates to their clan.

When AI is utilized for any competitive or award issuing activity - unless specifically allowed by the competition submitter or identified within the submission - then it becomes an issue for the Chamber.

I want to recognize Nora Olen di Plagia for pleading to the charges and exercising her rights under Covenant section 7.03(j)(iv) to present arguments related to the sentencing. Nora Olen di Plagia accepted responsibility for the decisions she took as a result of being ‘caught up’ in the passion of being a rising star within the Brotherhood.

As she took on additional responsibilities, leadership roles, and was selected for staff positions she found herself in an unsustainable pace which led her to leverage AI. This is a good reminder to the Brotherhood that this is not a race nor do we have to achieve certain milestones at set times.


Sentencing

The Chamber spent considerable time discussing the sentence for Nora Olen di Plagia as this was both the first time AI was utilized for plagiarism/cheating and the first time a sentence needed to account for accrued XP.

Given the scope of time the plagiarism/cheating occurred included a Great Jedi War (GJW) and persisted for over a year the Chamber felt a significant sentence was warranted.

Therefore, Nora Olen di Plagia, has been sentenced to demotion to Equite 1, disqualification from the Celebrate the Enduring Spirit competition (in addition to current fiction competitions not yet graded and the thirty-seven prior AI submission), the forfeiture of all crescents, seals, word counts, and society progress, a Letter of Reprimand, strict probation for 12 months regarding promotion, and general probation for 6 months.

With the recent release of XP the Chamber researched all competition submissions from the charges, the corresponding placements, and the society progression to calculate the XP gained from these activities. This results in a forfeiture of 6,392 XP.

The Chamber next had to consider the application of untested discussion amongst the creators of the XP system and the prior Chamber in situations like this. First, I’ll outline their assumption that if a member were demoted as a result of a trial that their XP would be reset to the level of the demoted rank.

In this situation where Nora Olen di Plagia is being demoted to Equite 1 that would mean her total XP would be reduced to 5,000 - the threshold to achieve Equite 1. As of the writing of this verdict Nora Olen di Plagia’s XP stands at 88,632. In light of her guilty plea and statement to the Chamber a penalty of 83,632 XP was deemed exorbitant.

The Chamber’s alternative was to deduct the XP between the current rank (Equite 4 - 40,000) and the demoted rank (Equite 1 - 5,000) for an additional forfeiture of 35,000 XP. This leaves Nora Olen di Plagia with a balance of 47,240 XP.

For future Chamber considerations I would indicate that either option, reducing to the threshold of the demoted rank or taking the difference between the current rank and the demoted rank, should be considered viable when judged against the following guidance.

  1. Which is suitable based upon the situation the member is in based upon the violation of the Covenant, their disposition during the trial, and any other mitigating factors
  2. That the sum of the action taken does not leave the member in a situation of negative XP
  3. That the origin of the XP is taken into consideration. In Nora Olen di Plagia’s situation the majority of the XP gained was not related to fiction nor awards derived specifically from fiction competition.


The result of the above action being taken by the Chamber necessitated the first application of the strict probation punishment to target promotions only for 12 months. The Chamber’s historical approach has always been that when a demotion was issued as punishment if the member remained active during their probation that they could be promoted at the end of their probation.

This exists during an era before XP where regardless of if the demotion was one or multiple levels that they would only be promoted one level at the end of the probation. With XP it would now be possible for a member to be promoted multiple levels based upon the XP accrued during their probation.

In this instance with Nora Olen di Plagia the Chamber does not want to see an immediate return to Equite 4 at the end of her probation. Nor does the Chamber wish to set a probation period that extends beyond 12 months. As such, the Chamber is issuing the order that following the conclusion of 12 months strict probation prohibiting promotion that Nora Olen di Plagia is elevated 1 rank at a time at intervals no less than 3 months.


/s/ Kamjin “Maverick” Lap’lamiz

Points of Interest

This is the first occurrence of the Chamber enacting a punishment that included XP reductions.