The AI revolution. A new age of technology that is turning the world on its head. AI, artificial intelligence, is going to change the way that we live our lives, inside and outside of school. But with great power comes great responsibility, and we must approach the new age of artificial intelligence with caution. 

For students, this new technology is a gold mine for procrastination and free homework passes. But for teachers, it is a plagiarism nightmare. 

Chatbots have been around for quite some time. The first one dates all the way back to MIT’s 1950 creation ELIZA. However, until now, these chatbots have not been widely accessible to the public, or our students.

ChatGPT, is a new chatbot that was released in mid-Feb. In 2023 by a US company OpenAI. It can generate extremely human-like responses. 

ChatGPT will write anything that you tell them to. In order to test the plausibility of these new online helpers, I ran an experiment to see how well ChatGPT could do my freshman year English assignments. 

I was asked to write a 200 word essay about the themes in George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  

It came up with an essay that, while not properly MLA cited or supported with in text evidence, was pretty accurate and in depth. 

The possibilities for Chatbots like these are endless. But also pose a threat to the academic integrity of our schools. 

Teachers must be aware of the new tool that students now have free access to. And must set up prevention methods in order to hold students accountable to doing their own work. 

Luckily, most plagiarism checking websites are able to pick up on AI generated responses, as it does not cite its sources. But the danger lies when teachers do not take the time to implement these plagiarism accountability methods into day to day class activities. 

There are several free online plagiarism detection websites that can be used in order to protect our education from the rise of the robots. It is in everyone’s best interest if these chatbots are kept out of our schools.