ChatGPT: An educational tool or a new way to cheat?
By Zack Armstrong
The emerging technology of AI chat-bots, such as ChatGPT, has ushered in a new age for students and universities alike. Using these new technologies, students can copy-paste an essay prompt or assignment description into the chatbot and get back a seemingly well-written and (mostly) accurate output. To say that the emergence of this new technology in academic institutions is controversial would be an understatement.
Prompt entered by author in ChatGPT
While some students use ChatGPT exclusively as a writing tool, getting feedback and inspiration from the AI, others use it to quickly generate papers without putting in any effort beyond inserting the prompt. Considering how quickly the technology has and continues to develop, universities and professors struggle to create consistent guidelines and policies for using AI. While some professors view it as a helpful educational tool, the general consensus is overwhelmingly negative.
I reached out to associate professor of English, Dr. Andre DeCuir, to hear his thoughts on students' use of this new technology.
“ChatGPT is very new to me and maybe for students too,” DeCuir said in an email. “Right now, I do not think I want students to use it if we have not had a discussion about how it should be used, the benefits of using it, and, of course, the drawbacks.”
DeCuir echoes the general concerns within academia—that this is a problem that ultimately requires more training and conversation. He feels that specific guidelines need to be set between professor and student so that there is a mutual understanding of exactly what elements of ChatGPT are appropriate for academic use.
“At this point, I would like there to be in-class discussions of using ChatGPT and maybe even some workshops using it,” DeCuir said. “In other words, I do not want students to use ChatGPT without ‘guidance’."
DeCuir also feels that he is still relatively inexperienced in the topic, and he is very open to new opinions upon further research and discussion.
“I am sure my opinion on the topic will change after I learn more about it through reading articles or attending sessions about positive uses of ChatGPT in the classroom,” DeCuir said.
Deciding exactly how students should be able to use ChatGPT may be a question that needs to be answered by university policy rather than individual professors. Unfortunately, this is an area where many universities, including Muskingum, are failing to keep up. After a thorough search of Muskingum’s academic dishonesty policies, I found there wasn’t a single mention of AI tools present. Without official guidelines on the use of AI at Muskingum, the topic remains confusing and contested by both professors and students.
I reached out to a student for an anonymous interview on their use of ChatGPT. As the university policy towards using AI tools is still unclear, their identity will be left unknown for their protection.
“I’ve used ChatGPT before, but not on like, every assignment … If I do [use ChatGPT], I don’t just straight up copy what it gives me, I really only use it for help if I get stuck on something and don’t know what to do next.” the student told me.
While they claim to use it purely as a writing tool, they admitted that this isn’t the case for everyone.
“I know multiple people that have submitted things completely written by AI,” the student said. “As far as I’m aware their professors never found out.”
Students are using this technology en masse to cheat on assignments and sometimes are able to get away with it. As technology continues to progress, it will almost certainly become considerably more difficult to tell what was written by AI and what was written by students.
The big question that remains to be answered is: how much guidance do you need to give a chat-bot in order to make its output considered your own work? For example, if you were to ask ChatGPT to fix the grammatical errors and clean up weird syntax in a provided paragraph, it would result in a paragraph that is mostly yours, but with some minor changes. Is that considered academic dishonesty? How would that be any different from using the built-in spelling and grammar checking tools in writing programs?
Until these questions are answered, students should be cautious when using these technologies in any capacity. Additionally, professors need to pay close attention to their students' submissions, and acknowledge the very real possibility that it may in fact, have been written by AI.
