Blog, Undetectable AI
Why Using ChatGPT Will Get You Expelled
If you’re a PHD student and use ChatGPT to write a research paper then get caught, chances are you will be expelled. There have been many cases of more lenient punishment for plagiarism around using AI-generated text for less important school work, but in certain cases, like large research papers required to get your doctorate, AI plagiarism becomes a breach of academic conduct so severe, expulsion becomes the appropriate consequence.
Table of Contents
Why Are Students Using AI in Academic Work?
What is Plagiarism?
How is AI Writing Detected?
Examples of AI Plagiarism
Conclusion
FAQ
Why Are Students Using AI in Academic Work?
The AI revolution didn’t just initiate a way for people to generate content more easily than ever before, it also ushered in a vibe-shift that continues to ripple through academia.
The busy work involved in doing homework and studying was always considered a meaningless but necessary part of the road to graduation. Now though, with the prevalent use of generative AI chatbots like OpenAI’s many ChatGPT models, students have a method to bypass the busy-work and not engage in activities they don’t find meaningful or helpful, while also fulfilling the requirement. The image below illustrates how students feel about cheating, taken from this analysis of plagiarism data, it shows most students are okay with some amount of cheating.
It’s been reported something like 86% of students have used AI for school work. This comes at various capacities but the overwhelming portion is AI cheating. In other words, the AI writing tools have become so pervasive that students have normalized academic dishonesty.
Educational institutions are left with few options. Integrating flawed AI detection software into their review process to thwart academic misconduct has yielded poor results because AI detectors don’t work as well as they need to and a climate of suspicion has been created on many campuses.
AI is a phenomenon that academia was not prepared for. And how could they have been? AI aims to change the way American universities function. And the fact that students may be missing the critical thinking skills that are acquired in the learning process, doesn’t seem to bother them.
Perhaps the solutions have to come from higher education, maybe they can institute more in person assignments where the use of AI is impossible, or maybe they can integrate artificial intelligence on a deeper level and change the way students learn so AI has a place in academic integrity.
What is Plagiarism?
Using someone else’s words or ideas without proper citation and thereby claiming them as your own is plagiarism. Using original work generated by AI as your own is considered “AI plagiarism”. Plagiarism is a problem present in student work in high schools and university but is a far more egregious crime when perpetrated by college students because of the requirements of college essays which is to craft an original argument.
Below, this poll taken by Forbes after surveying 500 teachers showcases their feelings of AI in education, whereas the most common fear is plagiarism.
These fears may be justified, but what should educators do as a response? When it comes to implementing AI detection, academia should proceed with caution.
How is AI Writing Detected?
Ai writing has certain key watermarks that AI detection tools like Turnitin, GPTZero, and more, are programmed to look for. These watermarks are measured as perplexity and burstiness. AI writing is simple and precise in word choice, sentence structure, and sentence length. Human writing is much more natural, random, and complex in these categories, whether in English or any language.
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The problem is, however, if AI detectors are programmed to determine simple, precise writing is AI, then any human that writes that way, like international students, will get false positive results from AI detection. There are many examples of AI plagiarism accusations that either fell flat or resulted in severe consequences.
Examples of AI Plagiarism
Here are just three especially wild examples of students that used AI to write their essays and getting punished severely to the point it made news:
Aryan Anand, a Lehigh University student, acquired a full scholarship after their essay and admission documents got them admitted into into the university. When those essay and documents were proven to be AI written, that student was expelled.
Marley Stevens was wrongly accused of using Grammarly by her university after her assignment was flagged by Turnitin. She got a zero on the assignment then had to plead her case against a disciplinary committee, which she eventually won by showing evidence that she did the work and claiming that AI detectors don’t work.
Benjamin Craver, a student at Emory university, created the AI study tool Eightball and won the grand prize of $10,000 dollars from the annual Pitch the Summit competition with it, only for the university to determine Eightball violated the school’s honor code. He was then punished with suspension for the Summer and Fall semesters of 2024. Craver and his parents are now suing Emory and it’s lawsuits like these that will move the needle in terms of university AI policy.
Conclusion
The AI revolution hit academia so hard, there’s no way they could’ve prepared for the impact. Anyone could have foreseen tension between students and higher education around the use of this technology but scenarios like punishing students after awarding them cash prizes are so ridiculous, they indicate how poorly managed the use of AI is in higher education.
Academia needs to let AI technology reshape it on a fundamental level. Anything short of that will result in unfair consequences and lawsuits. The sooner, the better for students. These changes are inevitable in every area of life.
The only way to use AI to avoid wasting time on meaningless busywork and not get accused of plagiarism, is by using undetectable AI software and the best in the game is StealthGPT. Whether you’re creating content for business or school work, StealthGPT gives you the ability to use the world’s smartest AI, to generate the most optimal form of content—human writing.
FAQ
What Happens When You Get Caught For AI Plagiarism?
Usually, your professor informs you that your assignment was flagged by an AI detector then you get a zero on an assignment and are forced to stand in front of a disciplinary committee. This process of defending yourself against these accusations is just as much a bureaucratic nightmare as a academic one.
How Do I Get Out of an AI Plagiarism Accusation?
If you want to defend yourself against an AI plagiarism accusation, you should take these steps:
When responding to a failing grade or AI-usage accusation, be polite and assertive of your innocence.
If this does not work, go to your student affairs office and get further direction.
You will need evidence of your innocence so be prepared with documents showing your history with the assignment and preparation for it.
Do your own research and compile sources that testify to the faultiness of AI detectors.
Try to get witness testimony of your working on the project.
How Should Colleges Use AI?
There are many ways faculty is already using AI like helping them sift through applications or generating syllabi, etc. However, there are more engaing integrations of AI on the horizon. Personalized curricula is one of the larger changes coming soon where professors can personalize the learning experience for each individual to take advantages of their strengths while bypassing their weaknesses to ensure no student gets left behind.