As the popularity of AI tools such as ChatGPT continues to expand, it remains unclear just how these bots will integrate into the education world. Their connections to plagiarism are one chief concern for educators, who worry that trusted plagiarism softwares will be unable to detect AI-written work. Teacher and librarian Daniel Sabol has plenty of experience with thwarting plagiarism, and he contributed this guest blog on the powers of ChatGPT and its relationship to the plagiarism detection software Turnitin.
Will ChatGPT and GPT4 use be detectable by plagiarism tools like Turnitin?
We live in a technology-driven educational world that is host to various tools that help empower student learning. We have tools that can adapt to learning styles based on input they receive from each child. And, we are rapidly moving into the prosthetic/bionic teaching mode with products like BrainCo's NeuroMaker STEM, which students can use to develop impressive futuristic products through hands-on experiences.
But, when it comes to plagiarism, we have only had to compete with paid writing services that complete papers or articles for students. These services generally turn out mediocre work at best, with misspelled words and mechanical and grammatical errors.
Combating plagiarism as an educator.
In my many years of teaching and working as a librarian, I have been able to spot plagiarism rapidly. Generally, educators will know their students, how they write, and their writing capabilities. Writing is a challenging skill to pick up. It may come with time, or students can develop writing skills when writing essays and expressing themselves. But, it has always been a topic of struggle for many students.
As a librarian, I have spent most of my 20 years teaching students to find articles and cite sources when needed. I explain to students that they should not just pick pieces based on the article's title. Instead, they should make a plan for what they want to get across and locate articles to support their argument. I advise them to use the databases we provide and Google Scholar, which is another excellent general reference.
Because students are not subject matter experts, they can only use backed-up references from scholars to support a claim. However, students may tend to use a source as filler to make papers longer or refrain from proving the point themselves. Teaching students to cite sources is challenging, especially since you, as the educator, also hope they know how to transfer that knowledge to other topics.
Turnitin and ChatGPT.
We have always worked with Turnitin, a tool that has helped teachers detect plagiarism for many years. In addition, Turnitin now has an enormous database of papers that helps teachers determine if students have plagiarized work. The platform even provides educators with a percentage of any given article that appears plagiarized. According to most teachers who've used Turnitin, a standard and acceptable plagiarism score is 20%. However, when a student gets out of that range, it is best to take a second look at their work.
The big problem educators now face is AI writing tools like ChatGPT, especially GPT-4. To understand how ChatGPT works, think of a chatbot. Chatbots are often found across company websites, helping to answer general questions after the company has closed for the day. They also only give a finite number of answers that are easy to program.
ChatGPT is somewhat similar, as it too is pre-programmed to answer questions in certain ways. However, it is a whole lot more powerful, hosting 175 billion parameters on nodes, instead of just a few programmed answers. The name GPT stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” a type of AI model that is trained on a large amount of source text. This system has been given articles, books, and other items to add to its billions of parameters.
How ChatGPT learns.
ChatGPT is multilayered when it comes to its generative pre-trained performer. As its input nodes get more brilliant, its output nodes do the same, making it much easier for ChatGPT to jump into any conversation. It does not sweep the web for information. Rather, it gives answers and follow-up questions to the responses it has provided from what it has learned.
Training the ChatGPT system involved using reinforcement learning, which was based on human feedback. GPT-3, the previous version of the AI, was able to both learn and perform natural language processing from human AI trainers. The trainers played both the role of the user and an AI assistant in conversations, using written suggestions to guide their responses. Then, the conversations were combined with the InstructGPT datasets, which were transformed into a dialogue format for training purposes. In addition, ChatGPT keeps getting more intelligent as it learns from our questions. Its follow-up questions also help to make it a super conversationalist and give it the ability to interact.
Plagiarism with ChatGPT.
Now, let's get to the issue: students plagiarize using ChatGPT. As of now, no software exists to determine if students happened to use AI in writing a paper. However, the folks at Turnitin released a statement saying that they can tell if AI or ChatGPT was used for writing a report. They expect this software will be available shortly, likely in the coming months.
At Turnitin, they have been working on this problem for about two years, or the same amount of time that AI writing assistance bots were being perfected. They will be able to tackle this problem, I am sure. It's a matter of fine-tuning the algorithm to undoubtedly detect if students used an AI tool to complete a paper.
Next steps for educators.
My next question for teachers is whether your students can obtain facts from ChatGPT. Take, for example, Wikipedia. Many teachers want students to use Wikipedia solely to start with initial points rather than as a complete reference to learn about a topic. Do you decide as a teacher if it is okay for students to use?
The many implications of ChatGPT.
We thank Daniel for writing a post on such a relevant topic. We are always exploring the next technological developments in education, and ChatGPT is certainly one of the most intriguing. While students may use it for fact-checking and homework help, it is equally likely that they’ll use it to cheat. As educators, ChatGPT brings up a dilemma: How can learning interact productively with AI? Check out our other new articles on ChatGPT and AI in education for more on the ethical and practical questions surrounding these tools.