At least one Florida school district is concerned that students used the popular artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to complete assignments. The fear of cheating using computer synthesis is growing in schools across the country.
According to officials Cape Coral High School students have been using the popular program to cheat on their essays.
In an email from the school, the coordinator of the school’s international baccalaureate program wrote that some of the papers submitted were “questionable in a few ways.” This included being different from previous writing.
The same email continued that the district would consider how to “address this concern and outline the consequences.”
The news is one that could have national implications. If these students truly are using ChatGPT to complete their assignments, it is likely that such cheating is happening in other school districts across the country.
The fear of students cheating with online tools is not a new one. However, advances in artificial intelligence technology make the issue far larger.
Online services such as ChatGPT and the recently announced Bing A.I. tool allow for human-like communication with these programs. The resulting language can be inconsistent or even incorrect but it is phrased as like a human wrote it.
Various forms of writing, including short stories, poems, and research papers can be generated with just a prompt. As technology advances, it is more likely that cheating will increase dramatically.
ChatGPT’s creators attempted to create safeguards to reduce the chance of cheating. However, even this came with drawbacks. Open AI created a test to determine if the selected text was created using artificial intelligence. However, this is not a reliable tool, even according to the company.
We’re developing a new tool to help distinguish between AI-written and human-written text. We’re releasing an initial version to collect feedback and hope to share improved methods in the future. https://t.co/4dQE3dX6vX
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) January 31, 2023
This also follows news that many school districts across the country are banning the use of the A.I. tool. This includes New York City schools.
ChatGP is just three months old, yet is already disrupting traditional writing models. The program could also be used to set an itinerary or write computer programming code.
