Stanford study on ChatGPT: Are students cheating now more?

RBC-Ukraine reports that scientists are considering the impact of artificial intelligence and ChatGPT on students' learning.

While preparing the material, the following sources were used: Stanford Graduate School of Education, Wikipedia, and an interview with Dr. Oleksandr Letychevskyi, Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences.

Things to know about ChatGPT

ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an AI-powered chatbot developed by the Artificial Intelligence (AI) research laboratory OpenAI.

The prototype of ChatGPT was released on November 30, 2022.

Due to the detailed and clear nature of its responses, its popularity among users grew incredibly quickly, although the factual accuracy of the responses faced criticism.

On February 18, 2023, the Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, announced that after prolonged negotiations with representatives of OpenAI, ChatGPT became available for registration to users in Ukraine.

On March 14, 2023, OpenAI introduced a chatbot model called GPT-4.

It became available to users in the paid version ChatGPT Plus. In this version, the chatbot gained the ability to process not only text but also images.

Since July 26, 2023, the official version of ChatGPT has been available to users on Android devices. Shortly thereafter, ChatGPT also became operational on iOS.

ChatGPT 3.5 (screenshot: chat.openai.com)

Results of the Stanford study

According to the findings of a study conducted by researchers from Stanford Graduate School of Education, the launch of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools has raised concerns among many educators.

They worry that students will use these cutting-edge technologies for fraud and cheating instead of learning independently.

At the same time, according to researchers Denise Pope and Victor Lee, "when students do cheat, it’s typically for reasons that have very little to do with their access to technology."

The results of an anonymous survey conducted among students from 40 high schools in the United States indicate that the percentage of high school students cheating during their studies remains statistically unchanged (compared to previous years without ChatGPT).

"AI is not going away. Along with addressing the deeper reasons why students cheat, we need to teach students how to understand and think critically about this technology... We want students to learn how to use it responsibly," emphasized Lee.

The progress is unstoppable (photo: Рixabay)

Opinion of a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences from Ukraine

Oleksandr Letychevskyi, the head of the Department of Digital Automata Theory at the V. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and a Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, believes that artificial intelligence should be consciously used by analyzing its correctness.

According to him, in British universities, ChatGPT is allowed only as a reference tool when writing papers, but it cannot be used in student assignments.

"There are already programs that can determine whether the text was written by a human or ChatGPT," noted the cyberneticist.

In his opinion, "smart" technologies can be used as a hint.

"Students can be allowed to learn something based on AI, but they should do their tests on their own," emphasized the scientist.

Finally, he reminded that AI-based technologies may make mistakes as they are still evolving. ChatGPT, in particular, sometimes experiences peculiar "hallucinations" - providing information about events that never actually occurred.

Recall that we previously discussed the phenomenon of ChatGPT - how the chatbot conquered the world and became the cause of loud scandals.

Meanwhile, Google announced Gemini - the most powerful competitor to ChatGPT.