Using ChatGPT to find students using ChatGPT

Using ChatGPT to find students using ChatGPT

Like many people, I have been interested in the abilities of ChatGPT. As an educator, I think it is my responsibility to make students aware of it and its capabilities, but at the same time also ensure that it is not being used to complete entire assignments. I have spoken to many colleagues about how best to detect its use, but no one I have spoken to has seemed to have a concrete answer. Well, I think I found one today. It takes a couple of steps, but it's pretty easy to follow.

First, you need to get familiar with what a ChatGPT response would look like based on your assignment directions. My suggestion is to copy and paste your assignment into ChatGPT and generate the results about three or four different times. This will give you an overall idea of the type of responses that ChatGPT will give. One thing I have noticed is that ChatGPT gives overly organized answers, and they also seem lengthy. It seems to like to include an introduction, then a couple of main points (possibly even numbered in a list), and then a conclusion. You'll also find that ChatGPT’s answers are somewhat vague and usually have heavy use of the terms that are in your assignment (especially the introduction and conclusion).

The next step is to simply ask ChatGPT. What I found out today was very interesting - I decided to just ask ChatGPT if it had generated content. The way I did this was:

1.??????Copy and paste the assignment into ChatGPT and ask for the results:

2.??????Then, I copy and pasted the results I had received for the exact prompt, just created on a different computer with a different ChatGPT account. I simply asked ChatGPT, "Did you create this?"

3.??????It returned the results "Yes, I generated the text you provided."

4.??????I followed up with "How can I prove this?" and got the response "As an AI language model, I can provide evidence that I generated the text you provided by comparing it with the text I generated during this conversation. However, I do not retain information from previous conversations or sessions, and I am unable to trace the origin of any text you may have copied and pasted into our conversation."

Obviously ChatGPT and other AIs are going to have an impact on our daily lives. I believe that at this point, however, we should use these technologies to fine-tune our own work, automate certain tasks, feed our curiosity, and increase our knowledge. Unfortunately, ChatGPT makes it very easy and very tempting to have AI complete almost all our work. I think as educators, it is our responsibility now to be aware of how these things work and take proactive steps to try to minimize their use in ways we do not desire.

All this being said, I do find ChatGPT to be an incredibly valuable tool. Just like how Microsoft Word can give you spelling and grammar suggestions, so can ChatGPT. In fact, the final thing I'm going to do before posting this is to run it through ChatGPT with the prompt "Please correct for spelling and grammar errors, and at the bottom explain any changes that were made."

Here is what it came back with: