If using AI inappropriately is the same as plagiarism, I guess the punishment should be the same.
I see a problem though. Plagiarism can be proved with concrete evidences but it is not going to be easy to bring concrete prove against AI written texts. The tools we saw that developed are not 100% reliable too. You are likely to response to a false positive and a user may receive a punishment that he does not deserve.A permanent ban is never issued hastily, even when it comes to cases where plagiarism is more than evident. The same method would also be applied when assessing whether someone used AI or not, and regardless of the fact that AI detecting tools are not 100% accurate, the use of AI can be determined with great certainty through the detection of several posts of specific user with multiple tools. There can always be mistakes, but if you look at the AI Spam Report Reference Thread, you will hardly find a case where this was the case.
What, in my opinion, is the biggest problem is actually the lack of rules regarding the use of AI on the forum, and if you don't have rules, then some members obviously think that they can write their posts with the help of AI.