Will Turnitin Detect Chat GPT

It’s beginning to feel like we’re living in some science fiction movie with the rise of artificial intelligence. And while artificial intelligence has been around for some time now, recent advancements have made it impossible to ignore any longer.

From content generation to music, AI seems to be doing it all. And even though, we all expected the development of artificial intelligence, its growth, and adoption has been far more than most of us could have imagined.

This has resulted in panic across multiple industries including the field of education. Schools and professors are worried about students using these tools to cheat and plagiarism checkers are trying to catch up as quickly as possible.

Students who’re also using or intending to use tools like ChatGPT are concerned about whether their schools can detect them using plagiarism checkers.

Turnitin for instance remains one of the most popular originality checkers on the market. So, it’s understandable that, although for opposing reasons, professors and students are all interested in whether it can detect the use of ChatGPT.

Can Turnitin Detect ChatGPT

The primary purpose of plagiarism checkers is to help instructors identify which of their students did not do the work themselves.

They do this by comparing student submissions with various databases, including Google Index, ProQuest, in-house databases, and more, to identify similarities.

Unfortunately, this purpose is threatened when students use AI tools like ChatGPT to generate unique content which cannot be easily identified by these plagiarism checkers.

Instructors would get the impression that students presented original work if plagiarism checkers do not flag them.

So, it’s understandable that plagiarism checkers like Turnitin are putting in a lot of effort to create tools that can detect ChatGPT and other AI-written content.

The only question that remains is whether Turnitin can detect them. To answer this, let’s take a look at an announcement from Turnitin themselves.

In a recent announcement by Turnitin, they claim to have developed an AI detection tool, capable of detecting content written by ChatGPT and other AI content generators.

They even showed a demo of one of their AI scientists experimenting with the tool. But while this tool seems promising for instructors and schools, it’s yet to be released to the general public.

So, will Turnitin be able to detect ChatGPT?

The truth is that while Turnitin’s new AI detection tool, once released, may eventually be able to detect ChatGPT to a higher degree, the advancing ChatGPT and other AI models would limit its accuracy.

This means that it would be difficult for Turnitin and other plagiarism checkers to accurately identify the percentage of AI-generated content.

Keep in mind that AI is still in its infancy and will only continue to improve as time passes. Newer models may become even more difficult to detect.

To help tools like Turnitin, OpenAI has released their free AI detection tool called AI Text Classifier. However, even this tool has limitations as some simple changes in your content can make it difficult for the tool to determine whether the content was AI-written.

How Students Are Bypassing AI Detection

We hear about a new AI detection tool almost every week. This is understandable as AI continues to advance and people and companies begin to leverage them.

But it’s not all joy for everyone as students who leverage these tools in their assignments are worried. Despite this, some students have found ways to bypass these AI-generation tools.

Paraphrasing

The most popular means students are using to bypass AI detection is paraphrasing. AI tools leverage natural language processing (NLP) and natural language generation (NLG) to generate text.

So, AI detectors work by breaking down texts and then using algorithms to detect patterns within those strings of text.

The downside to this is by changing a few words in the content, it becomes difficult for these tools to determine that the content was AI-written.

Students who want to bypass these AI detectors simply need to paraphrase their content to avoid detection.

This can be done manually or through the use of paraphrasing tools like Quillbot. Keep in mind that these tools also use artificial intelligence to paraphrase content so they may also be detected by some detectors.

The only real sure way that students are able to avoid detection is by manually paraphrasing content before submission.

Use AI Detection Tool

Another way students are avoiding getting flagged by AI detectors is by being proactive.

In the same way, they use plagiarism checkers to check their work before they submit them for grading, students are also leveraging the multiple AI detectors on the market to check for detection.

Some of these tools even highlight the specific portions of the content that are generated by AI, making it possible for students to make any necessary changes before submission.

Training AI Models

This technique may be the most advanced on this list. Some students are resorting to training their own AI models to generate original content that can evade detection.

Various tools on the market make this possible without the need for coding experience. It may seem like a lot of work but the possibilities are endless in this case.

What Schools Are Doing About AI Usage

So, what steps are schools taking to prevent their students from cheating with AI?

Banning The Technology

Some schools including large public schools have already instituted policies to ban the use of ChatGPT and other AI content-generation tools.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a solution as that simply encourages students to identify means of avoiding detection.

And with the current levels of AI detection tools, students are easily breaching these regulations without detection.

Yet still, some of these institutions continue to ban the use of ChatGPT on the school’s network and devices. Some are even requiring students to submit handwritten assignments instead of typing.

Unfortunately, these attempts do not solve the problem as AI will only continue to advance in our modern technological world.

Schools should find a way to adapt to technology instead of fighting against its usage in the first place.

Professor Policies

Instead of banning the use of ChatGPT outright, some schools have chosen to leave the matter in the hands of the professors. They’re advising professors to set their own policies.

Embracing The Technology

As much as some schools and instructors may not like it, AI is here to stay. We need to adapt as educators instead of fighting against students for using these tools.

That said, educators aren’t the best at adapting new technology to facilitate the teaching process.

Instead of holding onto the old norms and standards, educators should accept the changing technological world and incorporate these tools.

After all, calculators were eventually accepted into the classroom despite initial concerns. Some universities including Princeton have taken this approach.

To this end, some schools consider the usefulness of ChatGPT, instead of seeing it as a threat to education.

These schools are expecting and ready to adapt to the changing world and how they can leverage these tools to improve the education process.

They’ve already started looking into how they can incorporate these tools into their academic activities. If you ask me, such proactive responses provide some level of control to prevent students from abusing the technology.