AI Checkers (Classifiers) Aren't There Yet - Part 2

On Friday, we posted about the use of artificial intelligence programs and their higher ed implications.* We noted that unlike conventional plagiarism - where programs to determine where an essay came from such as Turnitin are pretty reliable - programs to tell you whether something was written by a machine are not all that good.

Nonetheless, there are rules being made or on the books which would seem to ban handing in machine-made term papers. But some rewriting may be needed The UCLA rule - written before AI became an issue states:

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, the use of another person’s work (including words, ideas, designs, or data) without giving appropriate attribution or citation. This includes, but is not limited to, representing, with or without the intent to deceive, part or all of an entire work obtained by purchase or otherwise, as the Student’s original work; the omission of or failure to acknowledge the true source of the work; or representing an altered but identifiable work of another person or the Student’s own previous work as if it were the Student’s original or new work.

Unless otherwise specified by the faculty member, all submissions, whether in draft or final form, to meet course requirements (including a paper, project, exam, computer program, oral presentation, or other work) must either be the Student’s own work, or must clearly acknowledge the source.

Source: https://deanofstudents.ucla.edu/individual-student-code#c_prohibited_behavior (Section 102.01c)

I have underlined the word "person's" in the item above as something that needs to be modified to make it clear that the copying ban isn't limited to copying from a person.

Meanwhile, the UCLA Anderson School came up with what appears to be an interim statement on this issue:

I just wanted to send along encouragement for faculty and students to talk openly about how, when, and why we may use ChatGPT. As with any advance in technology, we want to be proactive in making sure we use them ethically and as a tool to augment the learning that takes place at Anderson.

 

For students, I want to remind you that the use of ChatGPT still remains an outside source and not original work and as such, should be cited whenever it is used for any assignment and should not be used when original work is requested by your instructor. This is an exciting time and don’t be hesitant to discuss the use of ChatGPT with your instructor before using it for any assignment.

 

For faculty, there are lots of exciting challenges here for us to ask interesting and original assignment questions to push students to go beyond what such a tool can currently produce. I’d encourage discussion and reflection with other instructors and your students on this as we continually seek to improve education...

PS: Now you’ll have to ask yourself whether this email was written by ChatGPT! :-)

Source: Email distributed to faculty last Wednesday by the senior associate dean for MBA programs.

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Yours truly should note that what such guidelines, whether from particular schools or issued campus-wide, should make clear is that instructors are looking for original work. Technically, cutting and pasting a collage of other people's work (or a machine's work) is not plagiarism if footnotes or other references are provided. But it does not show the ability of the student to compose something.

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*http://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2023/02/ai-checkers-classifiers-arent-there-yet.html.