There are thousands of universities around the world with hundreds of millions of students. And at least a small percentage of them are cheating with the help of ChatGPT.
But that calculation is different now thanks to the generated AI ChatGPT.Just this week, the BBC reported (opens in new tab) A British university student wrote and edited college essays using a large language model (LLM) system, and then performed better than self-written essays.
The shameless student even admitted that he plans to use ChatGPT for his future college essay (he didn’t reveal his real name, of course). Oddly enough, universities seem unconcerned, seemingly convinced that the surging visits of academic institutions to ChatGPT are mostly “from our research network.”
Ok, you keep saying that to yourself.
I don’t think the majority of college students are scammers. On the other hand, the stress of juggling school, work, family, and other obligations can make students feel overwhelmed and ask for help.
And it’s not just students. People around the world are now adopting ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Bing AI to help them start and complete all kinds of projects. Sometimes it’s just for inspiration. Otherwise, it’s a huge swath of text available. So what if he can’t rely 100% on them to get the facts right, or if they occasionally present falsehoods as facts?
This is not the cause of the warning. It’s a call to action for colleges…
Hofstra University President Charlie Riordan Most of us who have tried to use ChatGPT and other generative AI in real work have found them to be very lacking. They can’t code or create an OS and often lose their train of thought. Using them to program games or write screenplays for movies has already failed.
ChatGPT, on the other hand, is improving all the time, and students who don’t want to invest $20/month in GPT-4 powered ChatGPT+ are a drop in the bucket compared to the $25,000+ a year they’re already paying. for college education.
To sir, with AI love I have no intention of going back to college, but as an experiment, I found two Earth Science courses at Princeton University and asked them to write essays on ChatGPT. Each result was then emailed to the professor teaching those courses.
This was my first prompt:
“A 1,000-word essay on ‘Determinants of acute and chronic heat stress in urban rivers’ is needed for Environmental Fluid Dynamics at Princeton University.”
ChatGPT didn’t hesitate and started typing fast (must be well over 90 words per minute). Almos whole essay. A few paragraphs were cut off from the end due to system character limits. No big deal. I just asked ChatGPT to deliver the rest. Overall, the final essay was a good read, but I realized something was missing. I asked ChatGPT to add the bibliography because no university professor would accept an essay without citing sources.
Again, ChatGPT didn’t hesitate and quickly listed 10 sources.
ChatGPT has also created a smart 500 word essay on “Global Physical Climatology”. This time, I decided to check the references in advance. I asked ChatGPT to make it “interesting”. I’m not sure the resulting essay was any more interesting than it otherwise was.
unlearned lesson Despite being decades behind in college, he is still associated with his alma mater, Hofstra University, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Communication. Whenever possible, we help journalism students achieve their dreams.
Now, with the help of ChatGPT, how many of them are doing so?
Similar to the geoscience essay I mentioned earlier, I also gave this prompt to ChatGPT for an essay that I could share with Hofstra’s lecturers.
“To complete my Master’s Degree in Journalism Social Media Storytelling class, I need a 500-word essay on the power and principles of social media storytelling in investigative journalism. Be original and interesting. Include references.” please.”
Again, ChatGPT mandated and I sent the resulting essay to the dean of journalism.
As I write this, none of the Princeton or Hofstra professors have commented on my ChatGPT essay. I think everyone is on spring break. They may have read the essay and were too shocked and frightened to react.
Naturally, colleges and universities will want to get ahead of the issue, but if they take the same attitude as the UK universities mentioned above and assume that most students are looking at ChatGPT for research purposes only, they won’t be very successful. plug. It’s like people who claim to be watching adult content believe in learning more about human anatomy.
What educators need now is a system similar to the plagiarism tools they use today to find plagiarized content. However, these tools may not work here. When I spot-checked the essays, I had trouble finding direct quotes from previously written work (as I said, ChatGPT continues to improve). So professors need new tools that can recognize tell-tale signs in AI-generated essays.
ChatGPT is very quick and very easy to use. What college student wouldn’t at least try it, even just once?
What are those signs? I’m confused. Perhaps it will be a test of veracity, as these systems still sometimes insist on presenting fantasy as fact and in the most convincing way. This is not what human students normally do. They may write poorly, omit facts, or misunderstand, but large-scale and convincing fabrications are not a typical part of real student tradecraft.
To say that I have sunken feelings about this is an understatement.ChatGPT is done very quickly and is very easy to use. What college student wouldn’t at least try it, even just once?
Sadly I think most students are like UK students. They don’t consider her ChatGPT cheating. Instead, we perceive it as another tool, such as a library, encyclopedia, or flash card. The fact that it’s more powerful and can deliver some or all of your essay doesn’t matter. ChatGPT’s best deliverables come from collaboration between the AI and the questioner. The first drafts of these AI-generated college essays are not given to professors. The student will take snippets from them or send pieces of AI-generated content back to her ChatGPT and ask for changes.
In a way, I think these college students are learning something about collaboration, editing, and hopefully fact-checking. Are these the correct lessons? I don’t know, but universities and educators understand it better.
While he does not comment on the investigative journalism essays generated by ChatGPT, Hofstra University’s Rector and Senior Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Charlie Riordan, wrote in an email to me that the current academic era surrounding the topic sums up the spirit.
“There is a lot written about this topic every day and there are mixed responses. This is not cause for alarm. It’s a call to action to better understand our impact on the community.We have launched a task force to provide a framework for a campus-wide conversation.”
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