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One of the newer problems being faced by teachers these days is students using artificial intelligence to help (i.e. do it for them) write essays and do reports.
It has become so prevalent that companies like Caktus AI have enlisted social media stars like LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne to help promote their essay generating tools.
Many out there believe students who use tools like Caktus AI, ChatGPT and others are cheating.
One of them, apparently, is Dr. Jared Mumm, a campus rodeo instructor who also teaches agricultural classes at at Texas A&M University-Commerce.
In an email to his students that was recently shared to Reddit, Mumm explains how he used “Chat GTP” (it’s actually ChatGPT) to grade their final assignments and the entire class failed.
Why? Because, as Rolling Stone reports, he said “Chat GTP” claimed that every student in the class used the software to write their papers.
In grading your last three assignments I have opened my own account for Chat GTP. I copy and paste your responses in this account and Chat GTP will tell me if the program generated the content,” he wrote.
Texas A&M commerce professor fails entire class of seniors blocking them from graduating- claiming they all use “Chat GTP”
by u/DearKick in ChatGPT
“I put everyone’s last three assignments through two separate times and if they were both claimed by Chat GTP you received a 0,” Mumm continued, then adding, “I will be giving everyone in this course an ‘X.'”
There’s just one problem: ChatGPT doesn’t work that way. The bot isn’t made to detect material composed by AI — or even material produced by itself — and is known to sometimes emit damaging misinformation. With very little prodding, ChatGPT will even claim to have written passages from famous novels such as Crime and Punishment. Educators can choose among a wide variety of effective AI and plagiarism detection tools to assess whether students have completed assignments themselves, including Winston AI and Content at Scale; ChatGPT is not among them. And OpenAI’s own tool for determining whether a text was written by a bot has been judged “not very accurate” by a digital marketing agency that recommends tech resources to businesses.
Interestingly, Rolling Stone reports, someone took Mumm’s own doctoral dissertation and ran it through ChatGPT and it responded, “The text contains several characteristics that are consistent with AI-generated content.”
As a result of the professor’s misuse of ChatGPT, several seniors who have already graduated have been temporarily denied their diplomas.
In a statement to PC Magazine, Texas A&M confirmed they were aware of the incident and sorting through the facts. “No students failed the class or were barred from graduating as a result of this issue. The professor is working with the students to determine whether AI was used to write their assignments and, if so, at what level.”
Meanwhile, several students are still waiting to receive their diplomas.