Students in domestic universities have used ChatGPT to write papers, and the "masterpiece" is about to catch up with the teacher

Per reporter: Zheng Yuhang Per editor: Gao Han

At present, the functions of the artificial intelligence chat tool ChatGPT are being fully explored, and students are one of the first groups to start using this tool, and some of the problems it raises have also attracted the attention of the education community.

Abroad, schools have banned the use of ChatGPT because of concerns that students may use it to cheat. In China, the "Daily Economic News" reporter's investigation found that a variety of AI tools are still sold on online shopping platforms.

In response to this situation, every reporter interviewed front-line teachers in key universities in Beijing, Shanghai, Sichuan and other places, and they are paying close attention to students' use of ChatGPT. Some teachers clearly told reporters that they had found students using ChatGPT to write papers. A college teacher even bluntly said that it is estimated that there will be some academic chaos caused by ChatGPT after the start of school this year.

In the interview, a professor at a university in Shanghai told reporters, "Domestic plagiarism checking software currently does not have a plagiarism check for AI, even if students use ChatGPT, they can't find it." ”

So, how can colleges and universities deal with this problem of ChatGPT?

Students write essays using ChatGPT, "'Masterpiece' is about to catch up with the teacher"

Just two months after the launch of the artificial intelligence chat program ChatGPT, active users have exceeded 100 million. There is a lot of news about students using this AI tool to write papers.

On the other side of the ocean, American colleges and universities have been "like a big enemy", and schools and testing institutions have made surprising moves to try to put an end to students' "AI cheating".

The New York Times reported that across the United States, university professors, department chairs and administrators have begun overhauling their lectures, and ChatGPT has prompted a potentially dramatic shift in teaching and learning. Some professors are redesigning their curriculum to include more oral exams, group work, and handwritten assessments instead of typing assessments.

So, what is the situation in the country? The reporter of "Daily Economic News" interviewed front-line teachers of key universities in Beijing, Shanghai and other places to understand the situation.

"It is true that there have been cases of students using ChatGPT to write papers and submit homework," a law teacher at a key university in Beijing told Everjing, who said that the student's "masterpiece" was even the same as the teacher's level, and it could be seen that it was AI.

"My students are all college students and graduate students, and I myself have experienced this stage, and the depth of their arguments, the dimensions of their summary, including comprehensiveness, etc., can be seen at a glance if they use ChatGPT, and their channels for obtaining information are relatively narrow." The teacher added.

An associate professor told the Daily Economic News reporter that he has noticed that some students are trying to use ChatGPT, and because it is currently during the winter vacation of domestic universities, it seems that there are still relatively few students who use it to write papers on a large scale. But he predicts that there will be some academic chaos caused by ChatGPT after the start of school this year.

"When the school starts in late February, I will pay close attention to the matter, communicate with students after the start of the semester, and discuss it with the writing teacher," another professor of English at a Beijing university also told Everyday.

However, some university teachers are relatively optimistic about this, one of the key Shanghai university social science professors mentioned in an interview with every reporter that although students use this (ChatGPT) to write homework, it is a troublesome thing for teachers, but it can only do simple and repetitive work, high-level can not do.

According to the Wall Street Journal, University of Texas professor Paul von Hipper also found that ChatGPT can talk about mathematics superficially, but it can't really "understand" mathematics in depth. "It doesn't correct wrong mathematical concepts, and often introduces its own wrong concepts, and sometimes makes inexplicable mathematical mistakes that a basic spreadsheet or manual calculator wouldn't make."

"It acts like an expert and sometimes convincingly imitates an expert. But it's usually artists, mixing truth, error, and fabrication that sounds convincing unless you have some expertise yourself. Hipper said.

What are the tricks to prevent "AI cheating"?

In response to the current widespread use of ChatGPT among students, according to the Guardian, schools in New York have banned the use of ChatGPT because of concerns that students may use it to cheat.

However, the ban does not appear to be a "long-term solution," with the New York Times reporting that while some public school systems have banned the use of ChatGPT tools on school WIFI networks and devices, students can still easily find workarounds to access ChatGPT. "We're trying to have general policies, not specific cheating methods, and that's not going to be a long-term solution." University of Florida provost Lover told The New York Times.

In the United States, professors at schools including George Washington University, Rutgers University and Appalachian State University are reportedly phasing out take-home open-ended assignments that appear vulnerable to chatbots. Instead, they choose more classwork, handwritten essays, group assignments, and oral exams.

Some professors even plan to raise expectations for students and set stricter standards for grading. For example, it is not enough to have arguments, introductions, supporting paragraphs and conclusions after an article.

Due to the use of ChatGPT in papers, several well-known academic journals are also updating their editing rules. According to the Economic Times (ET), Nature says that for papers published in its journal, software such as ChatGPT cannot be considered authors. "This is because the attribution of any author implies responsibility for the work, and AI tools cannot assume such responsibility."

Some U.S. university professors said they plan to use detection software to root out AI cheating, and foreign plagiarism detection service Turnitin said it will incorporate more recognition artificial intelligence (including ChatGPT) this year. In addition, more than 6,000 teachers from Harvard, Yale, Rhode Island and other universities have also signed up to use GPTZero (ChatGPT recognition application), which is also expected to quickly detect AI-generated text.

Compared with the plagiarism detection tool in the United States, a professor in a university in Shanghai bluntly said that the domestic plagiarism check software is mainly CNKI, CNKI is mainly for the plagiarism check that has been officially published, and the plagiarism check for AI is currently not, "Even if students use ChatGPT, they can't check." ”

In addition, he also introduced that students from British universities must sign an integrity agreement when entering the university, and once they violate academic integrity, they face the risk of expulsion. But at present, domestic universities do not have this point, he suggested, "the Ministry of Education should come forward to formulate strict rules and regulations, and teachers should conduct face-to-face interviews with students for articles that teachers believe are suspected of machine writing." ”

Daily economic news