At HAHS, AI use is often put under scrutiny when used for assignments and projects. To avoid unintentional cheating, teachers often decide on its appropriate usage. Most do not discourage AI use, instead encouraging academically honest utilization to prevent unfair advantages. However, one common use of AI can create authenticity concerns for the wrong reasons. When AI plagiarism checkers make a mistake, students can be unfairly punished and have difficulty proving their innocence.
AI plagiarism checkers can make errors when they falsely accuse a student of using AI to complete a large part of their work. While it can be right a portion of the time, it is not foolproof, and detectors can vary in accuracy. For example, according to OpenAI, they removed access to its plagiarism checker “due to its low rate of accuracy.” Since there are many plagiarism checkers, it is difficult to know how likely they are to accuse a student of AI use. Also, detectors can be biased against those who speak English as a second language, labeling their writing as made by AI 61% of the time, as stated by The Guardian. Due to the complexity of AI detectors, many variables can increase the chances of being unjustly accused of using AI.
Teachers in the English wing of the high school use Turnitin to detect plagiarism and AI in writing. While it can be more reliable than other checkers, it has been known to characterize human work as AI-generated. For instance, Turnitin states that when it detects AI in the 0 – 19% range, it is more likely to get a “false positive” and incorrectly mark the writing as AI-generated. Moreover, it added an asterisk symbol at lower scores to highlight the decreased validity of the report. The unpredictability of checkers like Turnitin can negatively affect how students’ work is perceived. Furthermore, incorrect results can set a poor precedent for verifying writing. As such, while it can be difficult to judge whether work is original or generated, it is important to investigate concerns and scrutinize both the writing and the AI detector.
For more information, visit https://openai.com/index/, www.theguardian.com/technology/, and https://guides.turnitin.com/hc/en-us/.
