Students Using AI Are Getting Bullied in 2025 –Evidence from Europe and Istanbul (lightcapai.medium.com)

In 2025 a striking cultural backlash has emerged: students and professionals who use AI tools are facing active shaming, ostracism and even punitive measures. Peer‑reviewed studies and surveys across Europe — including a Duke University experiment and a 2025 NPJ Digital Medicine study — document widespread “AI shaming”: people judged AI users as lazier, less competent and more replaceable, even when AI improved outcomes. Real‑world incidents underline the stakes: over half of UK students report using generative AI, yet many hide it; one Istanbul student was suspended and publicly distraught after being accused of using ChatGPT, and a separate Turkish case led to an arrest for alleged AI‑assisted cheating. Surveys find roughly one‑third of British workers hide AI use, with nearly half seeing it as a shortcut and a quarter fearing colleagues’ judgment. The significance for AI/ML is twofold: social bias, not technical performance, is becoming a major barrier to adoption, and this stigma can blunt the benefits of human‑AI collaboration across education, healthcare and industry. Controlled experiments show reputational penalties cut across demographics and can affect hiring, promotion and clinical decision‑making — even when AI demonstrably improves accuracy. Consequences include suppressed innovation, secretive workflows, mental‑health harms and a trust gap between leaders pushing AI and employees avoiding disclosure. Addressing the problem will require policy, education and cultural shifts to separate legitimate academic/ethical concerns from moralizing bullying that undermines productive AI use.