‘But there is a difference between recognising AI use and proving its use. So I tried an experiment. … I received 122 paper submissions. Of those, the Trojan horse easily identified 33 AI-generated papers. I sent these stats to all the students and gave them the opportunity to admit to using AI before they were locked into failing the class. Another 14 outed themselves. In other words, nearly 39% of the submissions were at least partially written by AI.‘
Article archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20251125225915/https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/set-trap-to-catch-students-cheating-ai_uk_691f20d1e4b00ed8a94f4c01
Okay, sure. But how can you identify its use? You’d better be absolutely confident or there are likely to be professional consequences.
Not to mention completely destroy your relationship with the student (maybe not so relevant to professors, but relationship building is the main job of effective primary and secondary educators.)
Have the student submit drafts with the first rough draft written in class and submitted at the end. Then weekly or daily improved drafts. If the finished paper is totally and material different then it’s a red flag. If the student wants to drastically change the paper then the teacher must approve.
“Chat GPT, this is my rough draft. I want you to polish it a little and add some, but not a lot. This is meant to be a second pass, not the final draft. Make a couple mistakes on the grammar.”
Can easily be faked with AI. You can just prompt AI to make outlines, drafts, mistakes, fix the mistakes, etc.
I’ve presented on this at teacher conferences, for what it’s worth. There’s no effective way to detect AI usage accurately when the text-writing process isn’t supervised. The solutions need to accept that reality.
Then papers will all have to be written in person on an internet free machine or hand written.
Or we could focus on the core of teaching, which is building relationships with students. Then, with that rapport, students will trust their teachers when they explain why getting AI to do the work for them is hurting their own education. We can also change our assessment practices, so that students don’t feel the pressure to write a “perfect” essay.
And, yes; occasionally require students to do a bit of writing with invigilation.
that is an unrealistic solution
True, it has never been tried before.