AI chatbot doing kids' homework for them - undetectable

[noblegiraffe]

The robot apocalypse is upon us - an AI can now produce essays that cannot be picked up by plagiarism software. The Telegraph is breathlessly reporting that teachers are begging the government to solve the problem.

I've been playing around with the AI, and it is, indeed, impressive. It can produce perfectly reasonable essays in response to exam questions, in whatever style that you request; and not just essays, it can answer maths and science questions (and indeed any subject) with step by step explanations

Should teachers be worried? Probably. My DS reports that he has already heard of kids using it to do their homework.

How can we combat this?

Well, for English and humanities teachers, I would advise that you make an account and chat with the AI yourself. Feed it questions, see what it comes up with. It does come up with different answers each time you ask, but with strong similarities. If you feed your essay question in enough times, in enough ways, you should be able to spot AI generated answers.

The other solution is to only bother marking work that the students have produced in class, in test conditions - this is a policy I've had as a maths teacher for years. As a correct answer is a correct answer, who knows if it was produced by the pupil, their tutor, their parents, or the kid they hang out with at break time?

Parents: Try to encourage your kids not to cheat as in the end the AI can't sit their exams for them.

The software won't be free forever. But who knows what is coming next?

chat.openai.com/chat

Oh definitely - ds used a laptop with no internet enabled (dyspraxia).

It's about being able to show organic progress - here is Exhibit A, a supervised draft we can confidently authenticate - here is Exhibit B, a more polished final draft the student has worked on independently (& it's up to them to decide whether to give it a cursory tweak or slave over getting it just-so)...here is Exhibit C, the formative feedback from the teacher/supervisor which has enabled the student to move from A to B.

Not 'no essay' --> 'sudden appearance of final product which has sprung up like a mushroom overnight'!

The examples posted upthread are pretty rubbish, anyway, but presumably the tech will improve.

I'm just saying that commissioned essays have been absolutely standard for well heeled students since forever. This AI, if anything, is levelling the playing field so that everyone can cheat for free...

I once had an essay talking about spy equipment and where you could buy hidden cameras. This was in health and social care, they had been asked about 'health surveillance' ie film badges id you work with X-rays
This is brilliant 😅

See here for the response from leading plagiarism detector Turnitin: www.turnitin.com/blog/ai-writing-the-challenge-and-opportunity-in-front-of-education-now

In summary, they can't detect it yet, but anticipate being able to do so soon (well of course, they must say that).

If I was a student using university wifi or browsing software I would be avoiding even visiting the ai chatbot website, never mind plugging in my essay questions in the name of "curiosity", so as not to give any reasonable grounds for suspicion.

they are offering beta version for free as baits just like any other platform. People are all amazed how incredible it is. All companies are now lining up to get the commercial version to improve their chatbots.

I haven't yet found a chatbot that is actually useful, so any improvement in them would be good.

looking closely as the answers it produce, all are very lengthy with a lot of flaffing, not much substance. One possible application is politicians' answers to interview questions.

If I was a student using university wifi or browsing software I would be avoiding even visiting the ai chatbot website, never mind plugging in my essay questions in the name of "curiosity", so as not to give any reasonable grounds for suspicion.

Interestingly, a lot of university 'academic integrity' clauses don't yet cover the use of AI essay writing software, so it would be interesting to see a case being brought against a student for this.
Typically a student agrees that they will submit their 'own work' and not get 'anybody else' to write their work for them, or to copy 'another person's work'.
However, arguably, AI writers are none of these. A student can argue their 'own work' (submitting questions) has led to the output, it is not plagiarised, nor has 'anybody' else produced it.

If I use Word to spellcheck my essay, is that still my 'own work'?
What about if I use Grammarly or Quillbot to reword my text to make it more grammatically correct, or formal? Is that still my 'own work'?
Both of these are legit and were encouraged by my uni tutors.

It's a grey area and it will be interesting to see how it develops.

I’ve been using AI for “fun and research” for a couple of years and haven’t been overly impressed.l with either its output or me not being paid for doing the ML! 😂

I’ve not read R&J (or seen the films) - but from what I could see, the AI chucked out basically 3 points and phrased them slightly differently. I think if I googled “give me a 2 minute synopsis of R&J”, I’d get a far more comprehensive answer!

The devil’s in the detail.

Pretty much all level 3 BTECs I think- in part because it would be very difficult to allocate enough class time to do the assignments required. But for applied science there is generally a lot of calculation using your own data, talking about your specific experiment etc. I think there are assignments where weaker students could use it to drag themselves up to a pass, but for the majority of assignments, they'd have to understand the principles of what they are doing in order to do data analysis etc.

What it can do is edit their work for clarity- I tried putting in some text some of my weaker students have produced, and it can give the same content but expressed much more clearly- which would help some students.

So, from what I've tried, it can't write a BTEC assignment from scratch, just given the brief. If it's just given subheadings/prompts, it produces reasonable, if vague work. If you try to get it to draw conclusions from your data, you have to be quite specific in terms of what you ask it to get anything meaningful. I think my weaker students would struggle to frame their queries in a way it understands.

I do think it could help students achieve a pass, but I don't think it could produce a whole assignment for them. It's definitely something to keep an eye out for and be aware of, though!

To be honest, I think it's most likely to be of value to lazy, but bright, students.

Too lazy (or disorganised, demotivated, busy etc) to do all the detailed research/reading, but they probably already have an understanding of what's required
BUT
bright enough to input detailed questions and evaluate the answers
THEN
augment/finesse with some extra detail.

@Itsbiasedhere I would like to go back to when nobody gave a shit about pupils with SEN /disabilities.
There you go I rewrote your post for you no AI needed.

That’s rather unnecessary and a bit of a leap.

I tend to agree with you @NewNovember !

The obsession with memorising and regurgitating information under pressurised conditions proves nothing about a student's ability and is largely irrelevant in today's workplace anyway.

My dyslexic DS is by far the brightest, most brilliant member of our family in all sorts of ways, but would have been dismissed as a rt*d in the 60s and 70s and likely left school without a single qualification.

I've just asked it a few questions about trans rights.

It absolutely cannot be swayed from an 1000% backing of even some of the more bizarre TRA demands, including men self identifying into women's prisons.

And now we’re using offensive language?

“Disabilities/SEN” covers a vast range of conditions and to suggest that all pupils with either would benefit from coursework over exams is a vast generalisation.

Obviously access arrangements can also be applied for if a student is disadvantaged in exams due to SEN/disability.

I’m not saying that there won’t be some kids with SEND who would do better on coursework, but to suggest that someone who thinks that coursework should be scrapped (as it already has been in many subjects) simply doesn’t give a shit about SEND kids is hugely unfair.

Coursework in maths, for example, was complete bollocks.

The best system for both my DDs would have been vivas where they could be prompted 'tell me more' & 'explain why' to tease out their knowledge. Both old and new style GCSEs have their drawbacks for them.

What was coursework in maths? I can't even imagine how that would work!

Open ended investigations. I rather liked it, and thought it benefited students who liked a bit more time to think about things.

This was one I had the misfortune of dragging kids through. Foundation and Higher.

Two weeks, kids. Off you go! No I can't tell you what to do next. No, you haven't finished, we've got another two weeks of this.

What was to stop an interested parent talking this through with their child at home?
I presume the answer is nothing. Just like for science practicals a parents could talk through possible improvements or whatever, or for creative writing they could read a draft and suggest improvements.

I did some stats based coursework for my maths GCSE. I think we analysed football scores? It was fairly meaningless to be honest.

BTW, for those mentioning it, coursework isn't really used at GCSE/A-level any more with a few exceptions. IMO, the current system isn't really producing students suited to further study.

I strongly suspect I'm ND. My record at uni was walking into the library at 09.00, grabbing some books off the shelf, firing up the computer and handing in my essay a 14.00. Got a high 2:1 for it (back in the day that we had dial up internet and journals were all in print!)

Can I also point out 'coursework' doesn't always mean writing. I like to have a range of assignments, if I have the resources eg for health and safety if I have a 'clinical room' or similar then I can make a disaster zone and a tick sheet, the student comes in and identifies the hazards they can see in 5 mins.

I just tick off what they have noticed.

@Ridelikethewindypops

There was also the 'building regulations' section from a different student describing 'ventilation' - which it did but they should have been writing about lung function.

The student I wrote, "try not to use American resources" the student complained that she hadn't used any US resources. I pointed out the writing she had dome about, "The Americans with disabilities Act".

My favorite of all time was that 'dogs have rabbis.

Someone on Twitter was interested in me saying it couldn't do films so asked for a character list from Doctor Zhivago, the film. It literally made some up!! It would appear Wikipedia is more reliable...