Top French University Bans ChatGPT Use to Prevent Plagiarism Amongst Students
The latest university to ban the use of ChatGPT has been the French university of Science Po, which cited fraud and plagiarism as the main reasons for taking this measure, AtoZSerwisPlus.com reports.
“Without transparent referencing, students are forbidden to use the software for the production of any written work or presentations, except for specific course purposes, with the supervision of a course leader,” Science Po management said in an email sent to students last week.
However, the university hasn’t specified how it would track usage of the tool, but several universities, especially those in the United States have intentions to assign more hand-written essays and oral exams instead of take-home assessments.
Several public schools in New York City and Seattle have introduced a ban on this tool for all their students, while Sciences Po, whose main campus is in Paris, pointed out there will be a punishment for using the software, such as expelling from the university or even from French higher education entirely.
“The ChatGPT software is raising important questions for educators and researchers all around the world, with regards to fraud in general, and particularly plagiarism,” the email sent out to students of Science Po pointed out.
On the other hand, Microsoft Corporation has announced a further investment of billions of dollars in Open AI, the artificial intelligence research lab that created ChatGPT.
The software has gained mixed reactions from users; while the New York Times labelled it “the best artificial intelligence chatbot ever released to the general public” and The Guardian wrote that the software is able to generate “human-like” content, the economist Paul Krugman wrote that it would impact the demand for knowledge workers.
In addition, Check Point Research and other actors are concerned that the software can be used for ill-intention activities such as writing malware and phishing emails.
Although the impact ChatGPT has on academia is yet to be understood, many experts don’t see the software as a positive change. Daniel Herman, a California high school teacher and author wrote that the software would pave the way towards “the end of high school English”.
Students have already started using this tool for their assignments, as did a student at Furman University, who failed his course after Professor Darren Hick noticed the software’s style on his student’s paper.
