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In the closing months of 2022, ChatGPT—an advanced language model AI—created both awe and concern with its incredible ability to hold text-based conversations and to answer complex questions. Another concerning aspect of this novel variant of artificial intelligence has been its capacity to write essays. ChatGPT’s essays, while rigid and mechanical, have still been increasingly used by students to complete assignments and important modules in their coursework. Though this raises questions about academic integrity and casts doubts on their learning outcomes, it also brings to the fore another pressing issue—plagiarism. There exist fears that ChatGPT’s outputs might amount to plagiarism, given that the essay-writing AI is capable of rephrasing content seamlessly if prompted. This not only threatens original authors and researchers, but also brings into question the current definition of plagiarism itself.
With these factors in play, it’s important to know that AI essay writers are on the verge of threatening quality writing due to their impact on both the writing process and by making way for increased plagiarism. Despite continuing and growing demand for the application among students, concerned teachers, institutions, and even international organizations are looking to reign in the phenomenon with numerous regulations. However, the situation might be more complex and require a more pointed understanding. The subsequent portions of this article explore how AI writing might be compromising more than just the average writing assignment.
Growing Fears of Plagiarism and Dedicated AI Plagiarism Checkers
Increased levels of plagiarism in academia can compromise quality research and pose threat to authentic content.
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While industries across the world are rather hopeful about AI technology propelling forth advancements in human civilization, academics are more reserved in their comments. With essay writer AIs making it to the market unrestricted, more students are taking to applications such as ChatGPT to help them carry out important tasks. Within a few months of its launch, teachers have found students using chatbots to complete their assignments. Reports of students using these applications to cheat in exams are also another concerning development that has forced a slew of regulatory measures to be instituted in schools against the use of such tools. Moreover, chatbots based on natural language processing and linguistic models are also known to be adept at rephrasing content from the source material. While producing articles and work that borrows from a particular piece of text without crediting its author is inherently problematic, it also has opened up the world to a new problem—AI-assisted plagiarism. While the definition of plagiarism has not yet undergone a revamp, considering current scenarios are still constantly evolving and in flux, this might indeed be the perfect time for reconsideration.
The trend of deploying AI in academics is also beginning to make inroads in the higher education sphere, with even research students using essay writing software to help with their reports and research. While academia remains observant of the issue of growing threats to academic ethics and credibility, many have begun waking up to the apparent reality of AI plagiarism. Numerous organizations have already begun rolling out their AI writing detection tools, capable of detecting cryptographic codes embedded within the written content produced by AIs like ChatGPT. OpenAI—the company that developed GPT3, the model on which ChatGPT is based—has also resolved to create a tool to help detect content produced by their prodigious chatbot. As these concerns grow and find more consensus from different areas of the academic community, subsequent generations of plagiarism detectors must also include a separate section to inform the reader of the presence of any AI-generated content within the material.
AI Plagiarism and its Potential Impact on Writing
AI plagiarism is capable of disrupting traditional writing and research techniques.
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With an ongoing rethink surrounding plagiarism and the demand for AI plagiarism detectors consistently on the rise, it’s important to understand why these tools are necessary to mitigate the impact of AI plagiarism on writing at large. Plagiarism often occurs either by directly picking up content from the source and placing it within one’s work, by adopting an original idea without proper attribution, and by restructuring or paraphrasing the content without mentioning the source material. AI chatbots tend to promote plagiarism under all three categories given that they neither attribute the original contributor nor do they explicitly state the author of the work within the content itself when rephrasing it.
This is problematic not only due to the inherent yet shrouded plagiarism in the content generated by AI, but also affects the learning curve of students when it comes to attributions, citations, and analysis of text to keep it original. Assignments and papers often entail complex topics that require considerable amounts of research. By deploying AI text generators like ChatGPT, plagiarism might not be the only issue, with quintessential analytical skills also taking a hit in the process. While a few thinkers do suggest regulated usage of ChatGPT in educational institutions, AI plagiarism, student learning, and academic dishonesty are still outstanding concerns that require concerted effort and studies to address before undertaking such a drastic measure. Writing is a crucial and universal skill that enables individuals to function coherently even in life outside of academia; any compromises resulting from the integration of new technologies must be closely monitored.
The Outlook
A compromise on learning the art of writing can have far reaching effects across academia.
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With the consciousness of AI plagiarism growing, its detection will soon be included in text analysis to alert users of any artificially generated content. While this is but merely a palliative step in addressing a more pressing issue, the tweaking of plagiarism’s definition and what it encompasses in the age of AI will determine both the quality of writing and adherence to academic integrity. Though scientists and teachers continue to monitor and track the extent of AI’s penetration into everyday life in the recent past, the arrival of highly efficient language models has been sudden. It can be potentially more disruptive in the field of academia given its impact on one of the primary modes of communication—writing.