Hundreds of students are using AI to cheat on their assignments - but ... trends now
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Waves of students are turning to artificial intelligence to write their assignments but universities are doubling down on methods to catch them out.
Sydney University has revealed 330 assignments were completed using AI in 2023 and the University of NSW recently said they had similarly found a 'new wave' of cheaters emerging.
OpenAI's ChatGPT engine, which helped fuel the AI boom, has emerged as the favoured tool of lazy students with a 60.2 per cent share of the total industry website visits, according to Visual Capitalist.
The tool takes already written chunks of text from the internet and then combines, rewords and paraphrases them to answer questions asked of it - with varying levels of accuracy and impressiveness.
Marking systems have struggled to keep up with the use of AI in the classroom but recent developments combined with a crackdown on lax grading by the university watchdog is making it tougher on those who would rather let a robot write for them.
Although UNSW did not reveal how many AI-assisted assignments had been caught, its academic misconduct report recorded a significant increase of offences in 2023, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
A 'new wave' of fraudulent assignments using AI have been found by universities in 2023
A widespread consensus among students is that AI usage was undetectable, but Deakin University's cheating detection expert, Professor Phillip Dawson, revealed that close readings of altered work proved otherwise.
Prof Dawson said Turnitin, an AI marking software tool, is really only good at finding plagiarised work if the student is 'an idiot'.
'Most research showing good detection rates is based on the assumption that someone just copy-and-pastes, and they don't ask ChatGPT to reword or
