Use of AI to Generate Written Content May Be Efficient, But It Is Not Undetectable

Texas A&M University-Commerce Students Use AI to Generate Written Content for Essays

In recent months, we’ve all become more familiar with Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) and its many capabilities. But if you’re considering using AI to create your next term paper, legal brief, or article—think again. Students worldwide, including more recently at the Texas A&M campus in Commerce, Texas, are learning the hard way that while the use of AI to generate written content may be more efficient, it is not undetectable.

Students Using AI to Generate Written Content

AI language models like ChatGPT create written content instantly, and with little guidance. Students need only enter a short description, or prompt, instructing the model on what it needs to produce, and ChatGPT will generate text output in seconds. Is it any surprise students are using these tools to complete school work?

Since its introduction in November 2022, the rise in popularity of AI application ChatGPT—which uses AI to generate written text—has caused education experts and academic faculty to become concerned over potential risks of ethical issues in schools, ranging from use of the chatbot as mere assistance in locating key information for inclusion in written content all the way to relying entirely on the app to write entire term papers and other content assigned to students.

ChatGPT Claims Authorship of AI Generated Written Content of Student Essays

As use of chatbots like ChatGPT has increased, so too have the knowledge and awareness of educators.  In the recent instance at Texas A&M Commerce, an agricultural professor suspected the use of ChatGPT to create essays submitted by students in his class. After running each essay through ChatGPT, his suspicions were confirmed—ChatGPT expressly claimed to have written every single essay submitted in the professor’s class. And while ChatGPT is not known for its accuracy in predicting AI-generated text (some of the students have since been exonerated), other AI-based plagiarism detection tools do exist and still more continue to be developed.

Key Takeaways on Use of AI to Generated Content

No doubt AI-generated content will continue to increase as a go-to solution for fast, easy production of content and we anticipate it will infiltrate all uses of written content. However, users should be aware that:

  • AI use by students in higher learning institutes can produce issues;

  • While it may seem tempting (and efficient) to use AI generated content it is currently rife with errors; and

  • AI-generated content can be detected and there is risk of plagiarism concerns.

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Blog, Law, Technology & DataMandi Phillips