A Texas professor failed more than half of his class after ChatGPT falsely claimed it wrote their papers

[SBFNews]

A Texas professor failed more than half of his class after ChatGPT falsely claimed it wrote their papers​

Sophia Ankel
May 17, 2023, 8:02 AM EDT

Texas A&M University-Commerce. Google Streetview

• A professor at Texas A&M University-Commerce tried to fail some students, Rolling Stone reported.
• He said he used ChatGPT to test whether they'd used the software to write the papers.
• However, ChatGPT is not designed to detect material that it has previously composed itself.

A professor at Texas A&M-Commerce failed more than half of his class after ChatGPT falsely claimed it wrote their papers, prompting the university to withhold their diplomas, Rolling Stone reported on Tuesday.

In an email sent to his class of seniors on Monday, Dr. Jared Mumm said that he had submitted three of their last essay assignments into OpenAI's bot Chat GPT to test whether any students used the software to write their papers.

"I copy and paste your responses in this account and Chat GTP will tell me if the program generated the content," Mumm, who teaches agricultural sciences and natural resources, wrote in the email, misspelling Chat GPT.

"I put everyone's last three assignments through two separate times and if they were both claimed by Chat GTP you received a 0," he added.

As a result, most of the seniors — who had already graduated — had their official diplomas put on hold by the university, Rolling Stone reported. Mumm offered the class the chance to re-do the assignment to avoid a failing grade.

However, ChatGPT was not designed to identify content created by artificial intelligence — including its own. There are several other programs, including Winston AI and Content at Scale, that are able to do this.

The email was originally posted to Reddit by someone called DearKick.

In a follow-up post, DearKick wrote that several students wrote to Mumm to show him their timestamped Google Docs in an effort to prove that they did not use ChatGPT.

However, the professor "ignored the emails, instead only replying on their grading software in the remarks: 'I don't grade AI bµllsh!t,'" DearKick wrote.

DearKick also said that one student had been exonerated and that Mumm had apologized to them. Two other students had admitted to using ChatGPT earlier in the semester, which "no doubt greatly complicates the situation for those who did not," they added.

Texas A&M-Commerce told Insider in a statement: "University officials are investigating the incident and developing policies to address the use or misuse of AI technology in the classroom."

"A&M-Commerce confirms that no students failed the class or were barred from graduating because of this issue. Dr. Jared Mumm, the class professor, is working individually with students regarding their last written assignments," they added.

The use of AI technology in education has become a contested issue. While some schools in Texas have banned students from using ChatGPT, others are trying to incorporate the AI chatbot.

Source:https://www.businessinsider.com/pro...e than half,Rolling Stone reported on Tuesday