The Stevens Honor System may be facing a new challenger to academic integrity in the next few years; essays written almost entirely by algorithms. Recent innovations in artificial intelligence such as GPT-3 have made AI that is capable of writing language almost entirely indiscernible from that of humans, and with very little input from the user. Rather than explain its capabilities, I think it might be easier to demonstrate what is currently possible with the technology.
Using a free website I found online, I was able to generate entire paragraphs filled with factual information gathered from the internet about another article from this week, “New Bill Hopes to Codify Central Jersey.”
Currently, New Jersey is divided into two tourism regions: north and south. But many residents of central Jersey feel like they are forgotten in the state’s marketing efforts.
“Central Jersey sometimes gets lost in the shuffle between north and south,” Vainieri Huttle said in a statement. “This bill will help ensure that our region is recognized as a destination for tourists and businesses alike.”
“Central Jersey is a beautiful place,” Sen. Raymond Lesniak said. “From Perth Amboy to the Delaware Water Gap, it’s a region with rich history, charming towns and variety of things to do for family vacations.”
With only a sentence describing the main theme of the article, the AI was capable of generating a cohesive paragraph containing fake quotes from real congressmen about the subject, almost mirroring the real quotes from the article. Although remarkable, the technology is leaving many educators concerned about how it may impact academic integrity.
The main concern is obviously with writing assignments and how machine learning coincides with plagiarism and cheating. For something like a research paper, what percentage of it has to be written by the student? If it is 100%, does that exclude other AI writing enhancers like Grammarly? If not, what amount is acceptable? Is it okay to enhance a few sentences? A few paragraphs? What about just using it to brainstorm and generate an outline? Questions like these may force educators to stop giving writing assignments, seeing it as an unbalanced way to grade their students.
Not only is the question about where the line should be drawn, but if drawing a line is even possible. While we can create algorithms to create content, is it possible to create algorithms capable of detecting if something is made by a man or by a machine? Algorithms like this do exist, but detection always lags behind the creation, and they are nowhere near perfect. While they are capable of detecting content entirely made by a machine with high accuracy, this significantly decreases as the amount of text written by the machine decreases. This makes it almost impossible to detect if something is partially written by a machine, making plagiarism a simple task.
This leaves educators questioning how to reform their classrooms. Writing assignments in the future may be confined to short responses about concise topics, or teachers may force students to conduct papers in person with a pen and paper. Yet some are opening up to the idea of AI, encouraging students to use it to help boost their writing skills. Some are adding addendums to their assignments, asking students to reflect on how the AI changed and improved their reports.
Walking around campus, I have already seen posters advertising businesses that offer essay-writing services. AI writing is already here, and there may be little that can be done to stop students from using it. As the internet was being developed, educators at the time held very similar concerns, fearful of how the technology may impact learning in the classroom. Eventually, it became integrated into our daily lives and an important piece of how modern education functions. Artificial intelligence may take a similar path, adding to the ever-expanding toolbox utilized by students and enhancing the education that they receive.
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