“To my parents and ChatGPT†. “I'm about to thank ChatGPT in the TFG's thanks because it's helping me a lot.†. The networks are full of messages from university students grateful for the appearance of generative artificial intelligence (AI) that makes or helps them write the summary of a book that needed to be read, a short dissertation or the introduction to their final work. master's degree. But AI invents what it does not know, it suffers from what technicians call “hallucinations”, so its use “without being detected” is limited. Its creators prefer to talk about a “copilot†who guides you. This March, the conference of rectors (CRUE) in Santiago will once again address the issue that everyone solves as best they can. Some universities in the United States and Australia have banned its use, but experts believe it is trying to open doors to the field.
Two surveys by Wuolah – the platform that buys and sells high school and university notes – in which almost 5,000 users participated give an idea of the expansion of AI since the birth of ChatGPT was announced in the United States in November 2022. . Last June, 25.2% of these students used this tool or planned to do so (only 15% in their studies), compared to 60% last week. In June, questions were also asked about the use of other technologies at the academic level: 64% used Google, 61% YouTube and 38% WhatsApp/Telegram. They find AI useful, especially for making outlines, rewriting with other words and somewhat less for summarizing a text or answering questions. Enrique Ruiz, co-founder of Wuolah, maintains that it does not affect them: “On our page you can find specific content for each subject and resources from other years, however, on ChatGPT you can find solutions on more global concepts.” .
Robert Clarisó, professor in the area of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications Studies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), rules out the possibility of writing end-of-degree projects (TFG) or master's degrees (TFM) in this way. mandatory to obtain the title: “They are very extensive jobs to do. Its not that easy. Perhaps what the student can ask the AI for is, for example, to give him a first draft of an introduction with a series of clues about what he wants,†he argues. “Or ask him for small fragments or, when he already has it written, say: ‘Rewrite it to make it a little clearer or to highlight this idea more… â€.
“In addition, it would be very easily detectable (the hand of ChatGPT). In such a large work, the sections would not be coherent with each other,†Clarisó continues. “He has a tendency to invent. If you want me to do the bibliography for you, for example, half of the references it gives you don't exist.â€
The companies that are entrusted with these final works ensure that they do not suffer a drop in clients. “We do not have less demand, but over the last year we have noticed that students' expectations have changed. They contact us because they have made a draft with ChatGPT and they don't know how to use it or give it continuity,' says the director of Project your project, a peculiar company that claims to try to convince the client to do the work themselves, guided by a tutor or forces him to get involved in the TFG even if it is written for him. “Artificial intelligence is not what students need. (The tool) can write you a general text, but without references, which is what a research project requires. “He doesn't know how to make a systematic introduction.”
The Carlos III University library has chosen to teach its students to reference AI, which gives an idea of its implementation in classrooms. “Just as if it were a personal conversation, a talk or a class heard from a teacher, in the text it should be cited as ‘personal communication,†they recommend. There are already tools that rewrite to disguise the use of ChatGPT.
Senén Barro, former rector of the University of Santiago and professor of Computer Science, is clear about this and made this known to his colleagues at a recent digitalization meeting organized by CRUE in Valladolid. “Artificial intelligence should not be prohibited. Those of us who are teachers have to learn to use it to integrate it into our teaching, because the students are going to have to use it in their professional practice. They are going to use it the same with us or without us. For me it is a very useful tool in my teaching work,†he argued. And he added: “The educational system is still very anchored in memorization, writing†¦ and that, either we change it, or it makes no sense at all because the machine does it better than the average student. It's going to force us to change. The only way to achieve personalized teaching is learning assistants.”
Anti-plagiarism tools
Many pages that do final work provide the client with a positive report from an anti-plagiarism tool to demonstrate that it is a completely original document, as required of the student, but there is no reliable instrument to pursue the use of generative AI. “There are tools that give you an indicator of suspicion: for example, that 70% would say that this work has been carried out with artificial intelligence. The problem is that these tools have false positives or negatives,” explains Clarisó, from the UOC. “With antiplagiarism, you can check if the match is really significant or not; In the case of AI, you do not have this element, but it is an alarm to be aware of if it has been generated by AI. The teacher can ask very specific questions to see if the student has really done the work or look at it in more detail.
Not only do professors ask more and more questions to make sure that the university students have done the work, there are those who demand that scientists go to the laboratory or those who ask that dissertations be done by hand to, at least, force them to they read it to you. At the Blanquerna-Ramón LLull University, those taking the final project exam have to argue why and at what point in the process they use AI, but it is not prohibited. Nor at the University of Alcalá, where they must explain what they have asked and cross-questioned the machine and what it answered; They now give more relevance to the presentation.
The debate about whether it is legal and moral for a university student to pay for not doing the work causes this type of business that writes them to always shy away from the press. This newspaper has contacted a dozen companies that have not wanted to respond. Most of them outsource the writing to an outsider, in a kind of auction. The highest bidder gets the client's order and many work from South America. Will they use AI to do the work as shadow authors? It's possible.
EL PAÍS refused to include a link advertising the pages of two companies that do work willing to speak in exchange for this compensation. It is their “policy,†they argue, because the only way to make yourself known is on the Internet when the competition to position yourself is fierce and even more so if AI is perfected. “Without a link we are not going to waste the whole morning answering all the questions,†a worker explains over the phone. He relates that, from his conversations with “hundreds of students”, they are well aware of the “problems” that AI is generating among them, but he assures that the page is not affected by the demand for its services.
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