HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Teachers in the Tampa Bay area say students are using an online artificial intelligence tool to cheat on homework.
You can plug any question or assignment into ChatGPT and get a full response within seconds. Teachers say students are taking those responses and claiming them as their own work.
There's no real way to detect if someone used ChatGPT because the bot is actually coming up with each word on its own, so it doesn't show up in a plagiarism check.
“It just starts displaying abilities we thought were in the exclusive domain of human reasoning, right? Converse in a way that seems natural," John Licato, an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of South Florida, said.
Licato said he changed his teaching model.
“The model is essential that they have to do all their reading and studying outside of class. Then class time is mostly for assessment, so tests, assignments, and you know, group discussions and activities," Licato said.
He explained if they do have homework outside of the classroom, it's not graded.
Ashley Durham, a homeschool teacher and a tutor, said she's caught a few of her students in the act of using ChatGPT to cheat.
“As a one-on-one tutor, I can immediately see when they take the originality out. It doesn’t sound like the student anymore,” Durham said.
She said she thinks this could be really detrimental to students learning in the long run, and she thinks parents should step in now.
“The parents have to catch it at home. The parents have to see what your students are producing before it gets turned into the teacher,” Durham said.
She suggests parents read their child's assignments and ask follow-up questions. She said it's crucial to talk to students about the importance of learning.
“I have told them that yes, you’re going to get the right answer, but are you going to be able to take that knowledge in six months and apply it somewhere else,” Durham said.
There are apps that claim they can detect ChatGPT, but Licato said they are not reliable.
You can block the OPEN AI website from your child's computer, which most school districts in the Tampa Bay area have already done.
