AI Impact on Academica Integrity

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize education by providing new opportunities for personalized learning, enhanced efficiency, and improved overall student education. The AI's journey in education is just beginning. However, the widespread adoption of AI in education has raised concerns about academic integrity. On the other hand, the widespread distribution of AI tools by OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google has increased accessibility to all students and lowered the barrier to technology-enabled cheating. The impact of AI on academic integrity, the challenges and concerns it raises, and potential solutions for ensuring intellectual honesty in the age of AI is a critical issue.

The advent of AI has significantly impacted academic integrity, both positively and negatively. AI-powered plagiarism detection tools, such as those provided by Grammarly, Turnitin, and Chegg, have made identifying plagiarism in academic writing easier. These tools can scan large volumes of educational content and identify instances of copied text more efficiently than manual checks. The tools can be helpful for efficient and accurate plagiarism detection, a significant problem in higher education.

However, AI can also generate text that students can claim as their own in essays, research papers, and other assignments. As a result, there is a growing concern for universities and educational institutions. For example, AI language models such as GPT-3 and ChatGPT can create easily college term papers, a student’s essay, or assist on an exam. As a result, the advent of these tools has created more concerns about academic honesty and plagiarism.

Challenges Universities Face

Unfortunately, detecting AI-generated text is difficult by both humans and computers. A recent article in the Guardian describes a submitted journal article written by ChatGPT [1]. The paper was reviewed for publication in Journal Innovations in Education and Teaching International. The four academics who peer-reviewed it assumed these three scholars wrote it without any suspicion of AI usage. AI detection software such as ZeroGPT fare only slightly better as they only communicate if the text is most likely or likely AI/GPT generated.

This Guardian example highlights the potential for AI to be used for academic dishonesty and the need for universities and academic institutions to take proactive measures to address this problem. Some states and academic institutions are taking drastic measures to address the problem of AI-enabled cheating [2]. For example, Oxford and Cambridge Universities have banned ChatGPT in their classrooms due to plagiarism concerns [3]. The universities have stated that using the model in their classrooms would be considered academic misconduct. A likely consequence is that the advanced AI algorithms distinguishing between human and machine-generated text are not 100% effective or practical.

However, not all universities and academic institutions have taken this approach [4]. For example, leading academic publishers like Elsevier and Cambridge University Press have allowed OpenAI chatbots like ChatGPT [5]. As a result, there is a lack of consistency in managing AI contributions. Consistent policies and guidelines are needed.

Approaches to Policy Development

The best approach to developing policy might be to follow the guidance of the US Copyright Office [6] [7]. Copyright law only protects works that are the product of human creativity and authorship. The current guidelines state that “to qualify as a work of ‘authorship,’ a work must be created by a human being.” Therefore, the US Copyright Office “will not register works produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.”

According to the US Copyright Office, if AI technology produces complex works in response to a human prompt, the "traditional elements of authorship" are executed by the technology, not the human user. Based on the Office's understanding, users do not exercise ultimate creative control over how such systems interpret prompts and generate material. Therefore, when an AI technology determines the expressive elements of its output, the generated material is not the product of human authorship and must be disclaimed in a registration application.

The Copyright Office recognizes that, in some cases, a work containing AI-generated material may also include enough human authorship to support a copyright claim. For example, creatively selecting, arranging, and significantly modifying the AI-generated material can qualify as human authorship. Copyright protection would only apply to the human-authored aspects of the work and not the AI-generated material. However, the use of technological tools in the creative process is allowed as long as the human has creative control over the work's expression and forms the traditional elements of authorship.

Accordingly, these types of work may be eligible for copyright protection. However, only the human-authored aspects of the work will be protected. The use of technological tools in the creative process is allowed as long as humans have creative control over the work's expression and form the traditional elements of authorship. For hybrid cases, the US Copyright Office requires applicants to disclose the presence of AI-generated content. Additionally, the US Copyright Office requires a brief explanation of the human and AI contributions.

The Copyright Office approach may continue to evolve. Recently, the US Copyright Office launched an initiative to examine copyright law and policy issues related to artificial intelligence (AI) in response to the growing use of generative AI technologies [8]. The Office will issue new registration guidance and host public listening sessions to discuss concerns related to the use of AI in creative fields. The Office will also solicit public comments on copyright issues arising from using AI. A new webpage (https://www.copyright.gov/ai/) has been launched for related announcements, events, and resources at copyright.gov/ai.

In the future, the best approach may be for academic publications and institutions to follow the US Copyright Office’s lead by requiring authors and students to disclose and briefly explain human and AI-generated content in their work. Guidance for disclosure could come from accepted authorship guidelines like those provided by the APA [9]. In addition, requiring students to disclose the use of AI language models when submitting written assignments and referencing AI assistance ensures accountability and discourages academic dishonesty. With this approach, it is highly likely that in the future, the use of AI will have no more stigma than the use of a spell and grammar checker today.