[Athen] AI-focused plagiarism checkers and assistive technologies

[Top Tech Tidbits]

Hello Justin. My name is Aaron Di Blasi. In addition to being the volunteer Publisher for Top Tech Tidbits and Access Information News I am also a computer engineer and database specialist by trade with almost 30 years of experience in working with all forms of text and language manipulation algorithms, including LLMs, or Large Language Models like ChatGPT. I’ve written about some of the recent developments in LLMS on the Mind Vault website at: https://mvsltd.com/news/.

 

The question you are asking is a complex one, but I will share with you a simple opinion. In my experience, knowing everything that I know about text manipulation algorithms, all the way up to and through the neural networks and LLMS of today, there is no scientifically quantifiable way to say, with absolute certainty, whether or not a particular written piece was written entirely by AI, or whether it was used to assist in writing said particular piece. No one wants to say this out loud. Because people want to sell software.

 

LLMs function based on the statistical probability of words being used in combination, and have been trained on millions if not billions of texts or more. No one human pattern of writing is so unique that it does not follow these same statistical probabilities. Therefore, these programs may list their own thresholds for verified “cheating,” but they’re only guessing.

 

There was a piece recently done on this on NBC Nightly News at: https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/some-u-s-schools-banning-ai-technology-while-others-embrace-it-162747973876 (which mentions TurnItIn directly) in which they tested the program. They found that it flagged one student as “100% AI” that had written the essay right there in front of them. So no matter what else these programs say, or how often they “might” be right, I don’t, personally, think that student futures should be left to this kind of low probability modeling. I also understand this is not a choice that everyone can make. Which is why is think this information is so important to consider. Hope this helps.

 

Aaron Di Blasi, PMP

 

Publisher (2020-Present)

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Publisher (2022-Present)

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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Romack, Justin
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2023 6:24 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu
Subject: [Athen] AI-focused plagiarism checkers and assistive technologies

 

Howdy y’all!

 

I’m a strong advocate for AI solutions like ChatGPT and other generative text tools that, when used ethically and responsibly, have the chance to spark new and exciting ways to create and communicate…

 

But I’ve had two students in the past 24 hours (with 0 other concerns this entire semester) who have been flagged for plagiarism by TurnITIn (cited as using ChatGPT or AI technologies).

 

Both use assistive technologies (one is a speech-to-text user and the other uses a text prediction tool). They both also use Grammarly (one says they only made use of Grammarly’s features to change a word here or there, while the other mentions Grammarly helped them re-write entire sentences at a time). I could see the latter example with Grammarly causing issues, unless the first example was being conservative with how they truly used the tool.

 

Does anyone know much about the underlying technology of word prediction tools or Grammarly? I know there’s some machine learning baked into a lot of the things we use daily… but think LLMs like ChatGPT are notably different than tools that are making recommendations based on content you’ve created yourself.

 

Related: Has anyone heard about recent updates to TurnItIn that are flagging AI-generated content more aggressively than in the past? I knew this was coming, but hadn’t heard anything about a rollout.

 

Thanks in advance for my clunky post and questions!

 

Be well,

J

 

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Justin Romack  | Assistant Director

Disability Resources | Texas A&M University

1224 TAMU | College Station, TX 77843-1224

 

ph: 979.845.1637 | justinr at disability.tamu.edu <mailto:justinr at disability.tamu.edu>  | disability.tamu.edu

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DIVISION OF STUDENT AFFAIRS | One Division. One Mission.

 

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