Will ChatGPT get you caught? Rethinking of Plagiarism Detection

TL;DR

This paper investigates the ability of ChatGPT to produce highly original essays that evade traditional plagiarism detection tools, raising concerns about AI-assisted academic dishonesty and the need for new detection strategies.

Contribution

It demonstrates that ChatGPT can generate sophisticated, original content that bypasses existing plagiarism detection tools and discusses implications for educational integrity and policy.

Findings

ChatGPT-generated essays often evade detection by standard tools.

ChatGPT can identify whether its own content was generated.

Traditional plagiarism detectors are insufficient against AI-generated text.

Abstract

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and its impact on education has been a topic of growing concern in recent years. The new generation AI systems such as chatbots have become more accessible on the Internet and stronger in terms of capabilities. The use of chatbots, particularly ChatGPT, for generating academic essays at schools and colleges has sparked fears among scholars. This study aims to explore the originality of contents produced by one of the most popular AI chatbots, ChatGPT. To this end, two popular plagiarism detection tools were used to evaluate the originality of 50 essays generated by ChatGPT on various topics. Our results manifest that ChatGPT has a great potential to generate sophisticated text outputs without being well caught by the plagiarism check software. In other words, ChatGPT can create content on many topics with high originality as if they were written by someone. These findings align with the recent concerns about students using chatbots for an easy shortcut to success with minimal or no effort. Moreover, ChatGPT was asked to verify if the essays were generated by itself, as an additional measure of plagiarism check, and it showed superior performance compared to the traditional plagiarism-detection tools. The paper discusses the need for institutions to consider appropriate measures to mitigate potential plagiarism issues and advise on the ongoing debate surrounding the impact of AI technology on education. Further implications are discussed in the paper.