Essays on the edge of extinction?

Marita Hornsberger & Lilly Sabres-Battaglia Features Writers

Stuck in between the cross hairs of bustling social lives and schoolwork, students are in constant search of ways to keep their grades high and stress levels low.

In a world where technology is advancing at a rapid pace, it’s no surprise that we are seeing breakthroughs in AI programs.

One such breakthrough is the development of ChatGPT, a state-ofthe-art language model developed by OpenAI. This powerful technology is quickly gaining popularity in various industries, including the education system.

While some may doubt the writing abilities of AI, it is surprisingly natural. In fact, the previous paragraph was written entirely by AI.

Some are finding this technology to be a lifesaving tool to relieve their daily assigned work; teachers, however, are concerned and looking for solutions to help eliminate the use of AI.

English teacher and Eyrie advisor Dr. Richard Jones learned of ChatGPT in December and made other teachers aware of AI and its functions.

“It is not that harmful to senior writing courses because we spend so much time working with kids on the writing exercises—there is a lot of writing process conversation,” Dr. Jones said. “Really, where this is harmful is take-home tests, openinternet-based tests and short answer. From my perspective, it really would be more harmful in social science than it would in English.”

Dr. Jones went on to say that this is a problem resting on both the shoulders of students and staff.

“I think both sides contribute to this problem,” he said. “I’m going to put it on us [teachers], because if you catch kids doing this repeatedly, you need to think about what kinds of questions you are asking. But, if students are so lazy that they are not able to manage good classroom thinking, they shouldn’t be replacing their work with AI.”

English department chair, Ms. Julianna Cucci agrees and compares ChatGPT to Wikipedia. She believes students shouldn’t use Wikipedia as a source for a paper, but they can use it to get base information on a topic.

“We will think about showing students how it can help you become a better writer, or how it could help you to do something, but it certainly shouldn’t be a substitute for your own thinking or writing,” Ms. Cucci said.

Students who have tried their hand at ChatGPT, however, have not all received successful results.

A student who wished to remain anonymous has used ChatGPT for English class, and claims that the website is useful in a pinch with assignments that are low in points.

“I think it’s useful when there’s a short deadline and I feel overwhelmed with my work,” the student said. “It’s not an everyday tool when I use it; it’s more to just get it done rather than to get a good grade. It’s better than nothing.”

This anonymous student had remained a straight-A student all throughout the semester, but the grade received on the AI-written assignment brought them down to a low B.

Regardless of the grade that was received, the student will probably be using the website again.

“Yeah, honestly, ChatGPT is just a super simple way to get projects—that usually take a long time—done in less than five minutes,” the student said. “Teachers don’t always realize the pressure of the workload they put onto their students.”

Many conversations floating amongst the school teachers have been in regards to students and their usage of ChatGPT, and how the staff can combat it.

Dr. Jones believes that the issue of students abusing the website will resolve itself by the end of the year.

“I’m not really concerned about students using ChatGPT—I think it’ll get to the point where it [Turnitin. com] will mark that stuff,” Dr. Jones said. “We’re probably really close to having it banned on the school network, so it’d only be for homework…And honestly, I think this will sort itself out before the end of the school year.”

Several programs have been and are being developed to counteract the plagiarism, but as of right now, the school has yet to put them in use. Turnitin.com does not currently detect AI-work, but it has developed the technology to do so and will be rolling it out soon.

There will also be many new ways to detect AI-writing in the future.

“They are working on a digital watermark which would be hidden code inside the text that would indicate it came from the chatbot,” Jones said. “There is also a Princeton computer science student [Edward Tian] that created an app that can detect the patterns.”

For students, the workload is seemingly impossible and time consuming, and with the weight of responsibility increasing seismically with each year, it leaves many feeling stressed and anxious.

Even though many think AIwritten work is undetectable, teachers are catching on.

“I think you see a pattern [in ChatGPT],” Dr. Jones said. “If you read enough, like any English teacher does, you get used to these very typical patterns. The AI can’t form opinions and it can’t make an argument. If you were to ask it about anything such as gun control or abortion, it would not make an argument.”

What does AI writing look like, anyway?

ChatGPT prompt: Analyze the uses of ChatGPT in 50 words:

“Chat GPT is a large language model that can be used for a variety of natural language processing tasks, such as language translation, text summarization, text completion, and chatbot development. It can be integrated into various applications to improve the user experience and automate repetitive tasks.

ChatGPT prompt: Explain Romeo and Juliet’s love story:

“Romeo and Juliet is a play written by William Shakespeare. It is a tragic love story about two young lovers from feuding families, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, who fall deeply in love but are unable to be together due to their families’ ongoing feud. Despite the obstacles they face, Romeo and Juliet secretly marry, but their happiness is short-lived as a series of tragic events leads to the deaths of both of them. The play ends with the reconciliation of their families, who are finally brought together by the tragic end of the young lovers. Overall, the story illustrates the theme of love versus hate and the destructive power of feuds.”

ChatGPT prompt: Write a five-sentence paragraph on the evolution of dinosaurs:

“Dinosaurs are a diverse group of reptiles that first appeared around 230 million years ago during the Triassic period. They were the dominant land animals for about 135 million years, through the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Dinosaurs evolved into a wide variety of forms, from small, agile predators, to large herbivorous sauropods. Some dinosaurs, such as Velociraptor, were warm-blooded and had feathers, while others, such as Triceratops, were coldblooded and had scaly skin. The last dinosaurs died out around 65 million years ago, possibly as a result of a mass extinction caused by an asteroid impact.”