King’s College London Students’ Union (KCLSU) is developing an AI Manifesto to clarify guidance on the use of artificial intelligence at King’s College London (KCL).
During her campaign, Sheeba Naaz, KCLSU Vice President (Postgraduate) for this academic year, found that many students felt they were being wrongly accused of using AI in their assignments.
She made it her mission to put together a manifesto to outline perspectives around how AI can and cannot be used at KCL.
Other Universities have implemented their own measures, with the University of Edinburgh creating their own in-house large language model, ELM.
To put together the manifesto, Sheeba paired up with TASK Student Partners (Transforming Assessment for Students at King’s) creating an AI Taskforce.
“I came across a lot of students who were suffering in their assessments… That’s when I realised usage of AI or probably unclear guideline on policy is a big problem at King’s and students are not understanding that… When I ran for second year, this became a part of my manifesto.”
Sheeba Naaz, KCLSU Vice President (Postgraduate)
The task force spent this semester hosting a series of workshops at Strand, Denmark Hill and Guy’s Campus. They invited students to share their concerns with regard to AI use at University.
They then held a reflective workshop with attendees from across KCL’s various departments to discuss the problems found in the workshops.
Roar observed this session to see what the group was most concerned about and how these issues might be addressed in the manifesto.
KCL has been working on tackling AI in various ways. Some departments are considering removing coursework and just using exams. Others use coversheets for students to declare where AI was used in their work.
However, as coursework decreases and staff use AI in their work too, many are concerned that their degrees are being devalued.
Points made by the group included accessibility, ethics and the prevalence of AI in today’s world.
Once an order of priority had been established, the group was asked to put together a list of principles which could be implemented in the manifesto. The co-signing of the manifesto is planned for 9 January 2026.
The main takeaway of the session was that AI is here to stay; people across the University will use it and rather than running from this new technology with a blanket ban on AI, KCLSU hopes to build transparency and trust between students, staff and the University.
