ChatGPT, a new chatbot developed by artificial intelligence non-profit OpenAI Inc., has become the talk of the town and has forced people to contemplate its use in different fields.
In yet another incident, a graduate student used the bot service to write a university essay – and it passed, according to a report by The Independent.
Pieter Snepvangers, a student who graduated from the university last year, decided to test the AI software to see if in theory it could be used for coursework. During the process, he told the bot to put together a 2,000-word essay on social policy which the artificial intelligence bot completed in just 20 minutes.
Pieter also asked his faculty to assess the essay. The teacher said they would give it a score of 53, or 2:2. He said that he was shocked to find a university professor admitting students could “cheat their way” to a passing grade, the report added.
Pieter said, “I found a fairly prestigious Russell Group university and asked one of its lecturers if I could take his final year social policy assessment to see if ChatGPT could really work.”
“All in all, 20 minutes to produce an essay which is supposed to demonstrate 12 weeks of learning”, he added.
According to the faculty, the text was a little “fishy” and lacked depth, necessitating adequate analysis of the issue, the report added. “You definitely can’t cheat your way to a first-class degree, but you can cheat your way to a 2:2”, he added.
Several stories of people passing difficult exams by employing the chatbot have recently made headlines, which is why experts have expressed their concern about the tool, saying that it could be misused.
Students in the US have been banned from using ChatGPT in schools while British universities are “scrambling” to review how they can detect its use, the report added.
