Is plagiarism totally undetectable with AI?

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: The Observer
19 Mar 22:48

For years, universities tried to banish the plague of essay mills that sell pre-written essays and academic work to students who try to cheat the system.

OpenAI and ChatGPT logos are seen in this illustration taken on February 3, 2023. (Reuters)

Ensuring academic integrity in the era of ChatGPT is difficult as AI tools “raise a number of challenges and concerns, particularly in relation to academic honesty and plagiarism," according to an academic paper entitled Chatting and Cheating.

Interestingly enough, the readers did not know that the academic paper was indeed written by the AI chatbot ChatGPT.

“We wanted to show that ChatGPT is writing at a very high level,” said Prof Debby Cotton, director of academic practice at Plymouth Marjon University, who pretended to be the paper’s lead author at the beginning.

“The technology is improving very fast and it’s going to be difficult for universities to outrun it.”

Two of Cotton's colleagues claimed to be co-authors of the academic paper, tipping off the editors of the journal Innovations in Education and Teaching International.

For years, universities tried to banish the plague of essay mills that sell pre-written essays and academic work to students who try to cheat the system. For now, it is safe to say that institutions cannot detect if the work was written by the chatbot.

A number of universities announced that they plan to expel students who are caught using the software.

Computer scientist and expert on contract cheating at Imperial College London, Thomas Lancaster, expressed that many universities were "panicking".

“If all we have in front of us is a written document, it is incredibly tough to prove it has been written by a machine because the standard of writing is often good,” he said. “The use of English and quality of grammar is often better than from a student.”

The latest version of ChatGPT-4, released last week, was intended to be a better and more capable version that felt "more human", Lancaster warned.

Lancaster mentioned that academics would still be able to find clues that a student used ChatGPT. This could be because the AI tool does not understand academic referencing, which is a vital part of written academic work. As a result, institutions can "suspect" the usage of the AI tool.

“As your course becomes more specialized, it will become much harder to outsource work to a machine,” he said. “I don’t think it could write your whole dissertation.”

A number of academic institutions issued guidance for staff to be able to detect if a student used ChatGPT.

Prof Kate Whittington, the associate pro-vice-chancellor at the university, said, “It’s not a case of one offense and you’re out. But we are very clear that we won’t accept cheating because we need to maintain standards.”

“If you cheat your way to a degree, you might get an initial job, but you won’t do well and your career won’t progress the way you want it to.”

Universities are threatening to expel those who use the AI tool for their academic papers.

Academics are to be alert to language that a student would not normally use, warning that the content could be plagiarized.