Academic dishonesty in the AI Era

ChatGPT is bringing a plague of plagiarism

The world is shifting to live wholly dependent on Artificial Intelligence. It has become part and parcel of our lives. There is hardly any individual who keeps up with the modern world without being aware of the use of AI tools. But the fact remains that we cannot ignore the hazards of AI in our everyday life. Indeed, I appreciate the inventions and new technological tools introduced into our lives for the ease of humans, but it should not be that Artificial Intelligence supersedes humans in terms of creativity, labour, and menial tasks.

You may agree with me or not in this, but I have some reasonable observations about the misuse of AI, particularly ChatGPT, by students and teachers in school learning assignments. Their use of AI ChatGPT is not only confined to school learning assignments; I have observed its use in administration departments as well. It is sometimes appreciable if it does not mar human talent. The official correspondence letters and requisitions are generated through ChatGPT. Their language is overly explanatory and lacks expression. It further weakens the administration’s competence to correspond when the ChatGPT application is not in their reach. It should be trimmed out. I have seen many official letters to me which were generated; they were overly explanatory and lacked the official touch, with the content self-written by the concerned. This dependence questions the durability and learning capability of the administration office holder.

What concerns me more is that I have observed excessive use of ChatGPT in schools. Students find shortcuts to success. They fail to put effort into learning something meaningful. They lack writing style and fail to learn more vocabulary for fluent language. The students are not working hard to learn new knowledge by referring to different sources. They are not visiting the library for research and finding the solution to the queries regarding the subject. Instead of working hard, they have started working smart, as they think. They are becoming dependent learners by using the knowledge of ChatGPT and presenting it to the teacher as their own effort.

I have assigned the task to students to write a passage on a topic in English to check their language and knowledge about the subject. The students the very next day submitted their write-ups. I was surprised to see the similarity in the content and language, which was identical. The layout and setting of the paragraphs and the style of expression were identical. There are certain words repeatedly used

There are a few telltale signs to detect the write-up and where it is taken from. Similar words like underscore, highlight, significant, indelible mark, additionally, reflection, landscape, pervasive, holistic, delve, explore, among others, are some indicators that a write-up is ChatGPT generated, like (In a fast-paced moving world, In the tapestry, etc.)

There are a few telltale signs to detect the write-up and where it is taken from. Similar words like underscore, highlight, significant, indelible mark, additionally, reflection, landscape, pervasive, holistic, delve, explore, among others, are some indicators that a write-up is ChatGPT generated, like (In a fast-paced moving world, In the tapestry, etc.)

The above-mentioned indicators are a few to mention for the reader’s knowledge. There are many to know that there is no creativity or effort put by the person in the write-up. These cheating practices are academic dishonesty. They must be discouraged. Our students are already hardly qualified with proper education. Further, what spoils them is too much use of AI Apps like ChatGPT to generate content for their school assignments.

What is disheartening me most is the printed articles in the newspapers. I feel embarrassed when I read the articles published in the newspapers, duly edited and analyzed by the editor before printing them for the news story. They are also copy and paste and generated through ChatGPT. I have taken further liberty to talk to them through phone and sent them emails that it doesn’t suit the profession of the editor to print the story without making proper checks and evaluations of the content, whether it is self-written or ChatGPT-generated.

If such a practice is weighted, then our creativity is at stake. It is time to realize the hazards of the misuse of ChatGPT and AI tools before we lose creativity. I was given a book by my crony to write a review. When I started reading it I found the content was ChatGPt generated. Not even a single paragraph was written. by the author with his mind. This academic as well as intellectual dishonesty is not tenable for future readers. We must discourage these plagiaristic practices and encourage the thought that creativity is better than cheating practices.

Mujeeb Ali Samo
Mujeeb Ali Samo
The writer can be reached at [email protected]

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