ChatGPT: Uni’s fear cheating epidemic after million visits
Experts warn that the increasing use of ChatGPT among students in the UK has raised concerns over academic integrity and potential cheating
FOLLOWING our article earlier this month that ChatGPT can easily write passable essays, universities across the UK have expressed concern over a potential cheating epidemic.
According to reports, over a million students have visited ChatGPT’s platform since our initial piece, raising concerns among educators that students may be using the language model to cheat on assignments and exams.
According to recent statistics saw by The Tab, ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, has received over a million visits since its launch, and many of these visits have been from students seeking help with their academic work.
While teachers have been warning about the risks of relying on ChatGPT to write essays, universities are now increasingly worried that students may be using the technology to cheat on their exams and coursework.
Experts in the academic community have pointed out that ChatGPT can easily produce passable essays that can deceive even the most experienced professors. This has raised serious concerns about academic integrity and has led universities to consider taking action to prevent cheating.
What is ChatGPT?
By CHATGPT
This is what it said when we asked it what it was: “ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI, which uses deep learning algorithms to generate human-like text. It is part of the GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) family of models, which have been trained on vast amounts of text data to learn patterns in language and produce coherent and grammatically correct sentences.
“ChatGPT is capable of performing a wide range of natural language processing tasks, including language translation, text summarization, question-answering, and even creative writing. The model has been trained on a massive corpus of text data, including books, articles, and web pages, making it an excellent resource for generating human-like text.
“ChatGPT has become popular among students, writers, and professionals for generating high-quality content, including essays, articles, and marketing copy. However, its increasing use has raised concerns about academic integrity, as some students may use it to cheat on assignments and exams.
“Overall, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionize the way we generate and interact with language. However, its use should be carefully monitored to prevent unethical practices and ensure that academic integrity is maintained.”
One possible solution being discussed is the implementation of anti-plagiarism software that can detect if a student’s work has been written by a language model. Another option is to increase monitoring of students during exams to ensure they are not using the technology to cheat.
As the use of artificial intelligence becomes more prevalent in education, universities and educational institutions will need to remain vigilant and take necessary measures to ensure that academic integrity is maintained.
A spokesperson for the university said it has taken an “active approach” to deal with ChatGPT and is reviewing the design of future exams.
They added: “This includes not only the question to be answered, but also detection techniques showing where AI has been used inappropriately.”
A University of Oxford spokesperson told the i newspaper: “Students have been informed that until further notice we will not permit the use of AI tools such as ChatGPT in their assessed work.”
While a spokesman for Cambridge University, said: “Students must be the authors of their own work. Content produced by AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, does not represent the student’s own original work so would be considered a form of academic misconduct to be dealt with under the university’s disciplinary procedures.”
