NYU Bans ChatGPT to Prevent Plagiarism

New York University Updated the “advisory on plagiarism and academic integrity” Section of the syllabus for the new semester explicitly prohibits the use ChatGPT For completing quizzes and assignments.

Students On their first day, professors gave them explicit warnings not to use the AI to cheat. Vice.

OpenAI created the chatbot to create essays and articles. This allows professors to be alert to see if an assignment was created by a bot.

Vice spoke with Jenni Quilter (Executive Director NYU’s Expository writing Program) about concerns among academic staff regarding ChatGPT students completing assignments. She also said that guidelines had been issued to professors on how to deal with an AI plagiarism situation.

“The situation has already come up—we had instances of students using ChatGPT in December,” Quilter spoke. “The repercussions for using ChatGPT without acknowledgment are the same as they would be for any case of academic plagiarism, and range from redoing the assignment to grade deductions and a report lodged with the Dean of that student’s college.”

Vice was told by another professor to be vigilant about ChatGPT use.

“I’ve included an alert that it is banned unless used with my express permission as part of an assignment, and any use of it counts as plagiarism,” David Levene is Chair of The Department of Classics. “I also told [my students] (which is true) that I ran various essay-prompts through ChatGPT, and the essays it came up with were at best B- standard, and at worst a clear F. So (I told them) if they are hoping to get better than B- for the course, they should avoid it like the plague!”

One syllabus from the university’s Tisch School of the Arts has it clearly written, “Q: Is using ChatGPT or other AI tools that generate text or content considered plagiarism? A: Yes.”

Professors are well aware that not only essays-based classes are at risk. 

“The time constraint is purposely tight so you will not have enough time to consult your books, ChatGPT, or other sources, and still complete all the questions on the Quiz. …Students may not communicate with anyone (including ChatGPT) during the 24 hours a Quiz is available,” one macroeconomics syllabus read, although a recent Report The University of Pennsylvania found that Chat GPT fails grade six math problems.

For other classes, however, the concern might not be unfounded. Recent Poll The Stanford Daily conducted a survey and found that 17% of Stanford students used ChatGPT to cheat in the fall semester.

Professors are constantly looking for innovative ways to adapt to the new accessibility of AI tools. They may require handwritten assignments or incorporate ChatGPT into their teaching.

Modifying and adapting teaching methods around the AI bot is exactly what OpenAI CEO has Sam Altman has suggested.

“We’re going to try and do some things in the short term. There may be ways we can help teachers be a little more likely to detect output of a GPT-like system. But honestly, a determined person will get around them,” He stated. “Generative text is something we all need to adapt to.”