A new tool from the maker of ChatGPT aims to help deal with concerns about how artificial intelligence (or AI) can be used to cheat in school.
The tool is called AI Text Classifier. It is designed to identify writing that was produced not by students but by AI programs.
The tool was launched by OpenAI, an AI technology company based in San Francisco. The company is the maker of ChatGPT, an AI system that can produce any kind of writing on demand. Many education officials are concerned that ChatGPT could fuel academic dishonesty and harm learning.
But, OpenAI warns that its new AI Text Classifier tool – like others already available – is not perfect. The method for detecting AI-written writing “will be wrong sometimes,” said Jan Leike of OpenAI.
“Because of that,” he added, “it shouldn’t be solely relied upon when making decisions."
Teenagers and college students were among the millions of people who began experimenting with ChatGPT after it launched on November 30. The tool is a free service on OpenAI’s website.
Many people have found ways to use it creatively and harmlessly. Still, some educators are concerned about the ease with which it could answer take-home test questions or do other assignments.
School districts around the country report they are seeing discussions about ChatGPT change quickly.
By the time schools opened for the new year, New York City, Los Angeles, and other big public school districts in the United States began to block its use in classrooms and on school devices.
The Seattle Public School district blocked ChatGPT on all school devices in December but then opened it to educators. District spokesman Tim Robinson said teachers wanted to use ChatGPT as a teaching tool.
“We can’t afford to ignore it,” Robinson said.
The district is also discussing expanding the use of ChatGPT to classrooms to let teachers use it to teach students critical thinking. Students could also use the service as a “personal tutor” or to help create ideas when working on an assignment, Robinson said.
OpenAI wrote about the limitations of its detection tool on a blog recently. But the company added that the tool could help to find disinformation campaigns and misuse of AI to mimic humans in addition to catching plagiarism.
The longer a piece of writing, the better the tool is at detecting if an AI system or a human wrote something. AI Text Classifier can examine any piece of writing whether it is a college admissions essay, or a literary study of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. The tool will then claim it as either “very unlikely, unlikely, unclear if it is, possibly, or likely” AI-created.
But much like ChatGPT itself, it is not easy to say how AI Text Classifier comes up with a result, Leike said.
[February 04, 2023]