Cheating Fears Over Chatbots Were Overblown, New Research Suggests

Natasha Singer reports via The New York Times: According to new research from Stanford University, the popularization of A.I. chatbots has not boosted overall cheating rates in schools (Warning: source may be paywalled; alternative source). In surveys this year of more than 40 U.S. high schools, some 60 to 70 percent of students said they had recently engaged in cheating -- about the same percent as in previous years, Stanford education researchers said. 'There was a panic that these A.I. models will allow a whole new way of doing something that could be construed as cheating,' said Denise Pope, a senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education who has surveyed high school students for more than a decade through an education nonprofit she co-founded. But 'we're just not seeing the change in the data.'

ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI in San Francisco, began to capture the public imagination late last year with its ability to fabricate human-sounding essays and emails. Almost immediately, classroom technology boosters started promising that A.I. tools like ChatGPT would revolutionize education. And critics began warning that such tools -- which liberally make stuff up -- would enable widespread cheating, and amplify misinformation, in schools. Now the Stanford research, along with a recent report from the Pew Research Center, are challenging the notion that A.I. chatbots are upending public schools.

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