Teachers beware: ChatGPT can easily write passable essays
Scotland's teachers are worried about impact of chatbot on academic integrity
Lecturers and teachers have warned about platforms like ChatGPT and its essay writing capabilities, the Glasgow Standard proves the case.
We got the AI to write us an essay for Higher Modern Studies based on a past paper.
Two teachers assed what it would conjure up and said it would easily “pass” for the fictional student.
We asked “Analyse the case for the reform of Scotland’s system of devolved government”.
Then not before long up came a 600-word reply, which we hastily edited together and sent away to our markers — it was “wishy-washy” as one teacher put it, but it was “no better than what you’d expect from someone at high school and would pass the marking scheme set out by the SQA”.
Our other marker said: “It is quite basic, but with minimal effort would likely be passable.
“While this software does detect plagiarism and poor scholarship it may be pretty useless at detecting this type of chatbot software, though if multiple students were asking ChatGPT the same questions and it provides the same answers that would be easier to detect.
“How it should be utilized is a question leaders in education should be asking.”
Schools in New York, have already banned the use of ChatGPT on all devices and networks sighting concerns of encouraging plagiarism.
Newsrooms around the world are also wondering how it will affect the production of journalism, with the Daily Record publisher, reach plc, seeing how it could help write short stories and headlines.
With the chief executive Jim Mullen telling the Financial Times: “We’ve tasked a working group, across our tech and editorial teams, to explore the potential and limitations of machine-learning such as ChatGPT”, he said. “We can see potential to use it in the future to support our journalists for more routine stories like local traffic and weather or to find creative uses for it, outside of our traditional content areas.”
