Professor Failed More Than Half His Class After ChatGPT Falsely Claimed It Wrote Their Final Papers

A Texas A&M professor failed more than half of his class after ChatGPT falsely claimed the students used the software to write their final assignments. Rolling Stone reports: A number of seniors at Texas A&M University-Commerce who already walked the stage at graduation this year have been temporarily denied their diplomas after a professor ineptly used AI software to assess their final assignments, the partner of a student in his class -- known as DearKick on Reddit -- claims to Rolling Stone. Dr. Jared Mumm, a campus rodeo instructor who also teaches agricultural classes, sent an email on Monday to a group of students informing them that he had submitted grades for their last three essay assignments of the semester. Everyone would be receiving an 'X' in the course, Mumm explained, because he had used 'Chat GTP' (the OpenAI chatbot is actually called 'ChatGPT') to test whether they'd used the software to write the papers -- and the bot claimed to have authored every single one. 'I copy and paste your responses in [ChatGPT] and [it] will tell me if the program generated the content,' he wrote, saying he had tested each paper twice. He offered the class a makeup assignment to avoid the failing grade -- which could otherwise, in theory, threaten their graduation status.

There's just one problem: ChatGPT doesn't work that way. The bot isn't made to detect material composed by AI -- or even material produced by itself -- and is known to sometimes emit damaging misinformation. With very little prodding, ChatGPT will even claim to have written passages from famous novels such as Crime and Punishment. Educators can choose among a wide variety of effective AI and plagiarism detection tools to assess whether students have completed assignments themselves, including Winston AI and Content at Scale; ChatGPT is not among them. And OpenAI's own tool for determining whether a text was written by a bot has been judged 'not very accurate' by a digital marketing agency that recommends tech resources to businesses.

In an amusing wrinkle, Mumm's claims appear to be undercut by a simple experiment using ChatGPT. On Tuesday, redditor Delicious_Village112 found an abstract of Mumm's doctoral dissertation on pig farming and submitted a section of that paper to the bot, asking if it might have written the paragraph. 'Yes, the passage you shared could indeed have been generated by a language model like ChatGPT, given the right prompt,' the program answered. 'The text contains several characteristics that are consistent with AI-generated content.' At the request of other redditors, Delicious_Village112 also submitted Mumm's email to students about their presumed AI deception, asking the same question. 'Yes, I wrote the content you've shared,' ChatGPT replied. Yet the bot also clarified: 'If someone used my abilities to help draft an email, I wouldn't have a record of it.'

'A&M-Commerce confirms that no students failed the class or were barred from graduating because of this issue,' the school said in a statement. 'Dr. Jared Mumm, the class professor, is working individually with students regarding their last written assignments. Some students received a temporary grade of 'X' -- which indicates 'incomplete' -- to allow the professor and students time to determine whether AI was used to write their assignments and, if so, at what level.' The university also confirmed that several students had been cleared of any academic dishonesty.

'University officials are investigating the incident and developing policies to address the use or misuse of AI technology in the classroom,' the statement continued. 'They are also working to adopt AI detection tools and other resources to manage the intersection of AI technology and higher education. The use of AI in coursework is a rapidly changing issue that confronts all learning institutions.'

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