ChatGPT Plagiarism: A Software For Teachers During the Rise of AI Writers
Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash
ChatGPT Plagiarism became available to the public in February, a software designed by Tomer Tarsky to differentiate between original work and ChatGPT writing.
Other plagiarism checkers have also been produced over the past few weeks, but Tarsky created his software to specifically detect ChatGPT usage and is far more consistent with its results.
"I decided to build this software as a response to rampant cheating and plagiarism made possible by ChatGPT,” he said.
Similar software has been tested against ChatGPT and has come up with zero percent plagiarism ratings, revealing that they are not foolproof.
But what is ChatGPT? ChatGPT is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) trained model that responds to questions and creates conversations.
According to the website, its purpose is to “ensure that artificial general intelligence (AGI)—by which we mean highly autonomous systems that outperform humans at most economically valuable work—benefits all of humanity.”
Unfortunately, a large part of humanity who benefit from ChatGPT usage are students who would rather let AI write their essays for them than do the research themselves.
“I don't know much about it [ChatGPT], but I know it could help me cheat,” said Bella Estrada, a junior at The King’s College majoring in English.
Other students expressed their doubts about the website.
“I'm a person who knows how to code, and I know how to use technology … but this is scary,” said Ava Marie Van Hala, a freshman studying Politics, Philosophy and Economics. “I had it write a small essay on me based on its knowledge of me, and it wrote an entire essay, and it got everything kinda right, but it didn't get anything really right.”
Some students determined that the convenience of ChatGPT would not be a good thing.
“It seems like it’s taken away human agency,” said Emma Jones, a freshman studying Media, Culture and Arts. “That’s what's coming to mind, 'cause we’re not doing homework because we can use it.”
Additionally, the concern arose that professors might be taking advantage of this tool.
“Professors could probably use it to make slideshows for their lectures, so it’s just taking away our independence and putting it on something else,” said Jones.
Students and professors are both aware of and able to use ChatGPT, which leads to issues such as plagiarism. Professors are already taking measures to prevent students from cheating, one tactic being the usage of software such as Turnitin.com.
Dr. Dru Johnson, along with some other professors, includes this statement in the syllabus for his Spring 2023 Introduction to the Literature of Hebrew Scripture class:
“Students agree that by taking this course, all required papers may be subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com (directly or via learning management system, i.e., Schoology) for the detection of plagiarism.”
But it has been found that Turnitin.com cannot always detect plagiarism in essays written by ChatGPT. As a result, ChatGPT Plagiarism may become a new and attractive resource for educators in the coming years.
“This resource [ChatGPT Plagrism] has generated interest from teachers and educators from all walks of academic life,” said Tarsky. “There is already high demand from educational institutions as teachers implement this software to ensure continued learning in their classrooms."
With the unreliability of other plagiarism checkers and the rise in ChatGPT usage in school, Tarsky’s software will prove invaluable for educators.
Joanna Insco is a sophomore from California studying Journalism, Culture and Society at The King’s College. She is an intern at The Brooklyn Paper and is involved in ESTV. She enjoys spending time in nature and drinking copious amounts of coffee.