Students beware: This teacher has a smart way to catch ChatGPT-written essays
ChatGPT has become a much-used tool for everyone, especially students.
Since its explosion onto the scene, it seems the world cannot live without artificial intelligence. Whether it’s creating a CV, finding a recipe for the leftovers in your fridge, or — ahem — asking the best way to reply to a difficult text message, the handy tool looks set to stay.
Crafty youths are also dipping their hands into the murky waters of the new technology, asking platforms such as ChatGPT to do their homework for them. This is a problem for more than one reason: not only do the children neglect their duties as students, but they also appear to have made things undetectable to their teachers.
Except one.
The one trick this teacher uses to detect AI
Daina Petronis is a full-time curriculum designer and former high school English teacher who seems to have found a way to seek out those essays written by machinery rather than minds.
The trick involves embedding an instruction that only the AI would follow, a twist that goes unnoticed by many students. Rather than drafting a straightforward prompt, the teacher divides the instructions into two paragraphs. Sandwiched between them, she inserts a nearly invisible line in white font and tiny print.
Students then copy the prompt into ChatGPT without noticing this hidden command, which often asks something to be repeated within the essay. That way, when the essay comes back to her including the secret words, she knows exactly what has happened.
“In theory, LLMs can benefit learning, but there needs to be plenty of support in place to ensure that they are not being misused,” Petronis told Newsweek before commenting on her line of work involving the inclusion of AI in the development of curricula. “I am often approached by companies developing AI-detection tools who are looking to promote their software to my audience,” she added.
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“Before sharing these tools with my community, I always ask their representatives about their accuracy. The consistent response from these companies is that there is no surefire method to detect AI.”
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